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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

VOL. II

LIFE, JOURNALISM
and POLITICS

'By

T» A. SPENDER

«*\

Volume II

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

DA
MX

46213

SEP 7 1944

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

Chapter

20. On the Eve of War

21. The Journalist in War (1 914-18) .

22. The War and the Wounded

23. A War Hospital .

24. Kitchener and Fisher

25. 1916 and After

26. The Milner Mission

27. India, 191 1 and 1926

28. In East and West

29. A Royal Commission

30. The History of a Newspaper

31. An Editor's Works and Days

32. The Art and Craft of the Journalist

33. About Northcliffe

34. "War-Guilt"

35. Politics and Progress

36. Religion and Life
Index .

Page
I

53
60

87
101

124

133

142

154
164

173
183

194

207

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS
CHAPTER XX

ON THE EVE OF WAR

Liberal Social Policy — A Stubborn Fight — Increasing Bitterness —
The Immunity of Carson — Attempts at Bridge-Building —
Anglo-German Relations — A Lunch with von Kuhlmann
— The Warnings of a German Professor — The Crime of Serajevo
— Two Warnings — The Last Stage — A Telegram from
Bethmann-Hollweg — Reasons for Publishing It — The Belgian
Issue — A Determining Fact — The German View.

FOREIGN affairs were less in the public mind in the two
years before the war than at any time since 1906. The
country was absorbed in its domestic politics, which were
both complicated and tumultous. The Irish question threat-
ened something like civil war, and Parliament was struggling
with a mass or legislation, some of which seemed to be very
unpopular, and all of which was hotly contested by the
Opposition. The main Liberal idea in social policy at this
time was to cover the chief emergencies of the working life —
sickness, accident, unemployment, old age — with insurance,
but this encountered mountains of prejudice and was said to
be an unwarranted interference with individual liberty.
Doctors were up in arms; popular newspapers denounced
the "stamp-licking" conspiracy and called upon domestic
servants and their mistresses to fight against the new tyranny.
Undoubtedly the public was shaken. By-elections were lost,
and timid Liberals said that Lloyd George was ruining the
Party for a fad. There were weeks in 1 91 1 and 1 9 1 2 when the
Government seemed to be staggering to its grave under the
double burden of Insurance and Home Rule. On top of this
came Welsh Disestablishment, like Home Rule, a debt of hon-
our which Liberals could not have shirked without disgracing

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

themselves, but scarcely attractive or popular fare for the
electorate. The future seemed very obscure, and few of us
dared look a day beyond the date in 19 14 when the Parliament
Act would operate to make the Home Rule Bill law. After
that we expected a speedy dissolution and a swing of the
pendulum which would probably end the Liberal movement
for the time being.

It was a time of extraordinary bitterness, and there
were moments when the most venerable institutions seemed
to be tottering. The suffragettes were breaking windows
and burning churches, and no one knew how to deal
with them. Carson was at large arming and drilling a
force ostentatiously proclaimed as a challenge to the Execu-
tive, which seemed either unwilling or unable to restrain him.
The racial and religious feuds of North and South Ireland
seemed more to resemble a Balkan blood-quarrel than the
political contention to which Englishmen were accustomed,
and they threatened to spread from Ireland to England. I
was well aware of the reasons alleged for leaving Carson alone,
but they seemed to me bad reasons, and I found myself in
trouble with many old friends, and not least my Irish National-
ist friends, for saying so. The Irish hung together on this
issue; they might fight among themselves, but all of them were
against English interference in what they regarded as a domes-
tic quarrel. Redmond saw himself fatally compromised in
Irish eyes if he supported the coercion of other Irishmen,
even though they were his bitterest opponents. To leave
Carson alone, not to make a martyr of him, to let his move-
ment peter out, as the Nationalists were convinced it would
if it were not taken too seriously, were the prevailing counsels,
and no one foresaw that a Republican army, to say nothing
of Labour and Capitalist blackshirts, would presently claim
the precedent for themselves. It seemed to me that this was
one of the occasions on which a Government was bound to
assert its authority, regardless of all arguments for expediency,
and for once I saw Asquith unequal to the occasion — until
at last he turned and faced it and took control of the War
Office, after the inexcusable blunder which put a question
about obedience to orders to the officers on duty at theCurragh.
What might have happened next will be a conjecture to the

ON THE EVE OF WAR

end of time, but when Asquith did face a thing, he was both
formidable and resourceful, and my own belief is that he would
have rallied the country to him in asserting the authority of
the Government, and on that footing have found a way out of
these disorders.

There was no peace for editors, whatever line they took.
Every day's letter-bag at the Westminster brought insulting
letters, mostly anonymous; leading articles were cut out and
sent back to me scored all over with abusive epithets. One
little picture is sharply printed on my memory — that of a
great lady who in happier times had invited me to her house,
standing on top of the stairs which lead from the Ladies'
Gallery of the House of Commons to the Lobby, and hurling
extremely painful epithets at me as I went down. On
another occasion I answered the telephone on my table at
the office to find an eminent and very angry British musician
at the other end speaking from his house at Hampstead.
"Are you the editor of the Westminster Gazette ?" "I am,"
I modestiy replied, expecting a communication about a forth-
coming symphony, but it was far otherwise. "Someone,"
he said in a voice quivering with rage, "has left a copy of your
paper at my house. Please send at once and fetch it away."
I suggested that if its presence was disagreeable to him, he
had an easy remedy, but the voice persisted in a crescendo of
anger, "Send at once, I tell you, send at once and fetch it away."

In common, I suppose, with most others who were occu-
pied in politics, I had a hand in some of the numerous attempts
to build bridges behind the scenes. A large bundle of corre-
spondence is evidence of these activities. I was in touch
with the Round Table group and certain Conservative mem-
bers of Parliament, who were quite as anxious as we were
about the course on which events were driving the two parties.
The details are not worth recalling, but the search was, as
usual, for formulas to save faces, and we were told that Carson
was more amenable than his public utterances seemed to
indicate. Some of our proceedings were pleasantly mysteri-
ous. I was taken one day to the house of an eminent Con-
servative, and through his telephone held a conversation with
someone who, I was told, was a very important person and
wished to talk to me, though it was not convenient to him

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

to meet me. What he said seemed to be rather promising,
and I thought I recognized the voice sufficiently well to justify
me in repeating the conversation to Asquith, as I was plainly
intended to do. Asquith received the communication with
good-humoured attention, qualified with a scepticism which,
as the event proved, was well-justified. I see from dipping
into the record that Lang, the Archbishop of York, was
asked to further our schemes by moving a resolution in the
House of Lords. I corresponded with him for a time about
that, but while we were exchanging letters, other things were
happening.

The last weeks before the war can only be reconstructed
if we remember this background of domestic politics against
which the final scene was played out. Liberal Ministers and
Liberal journalists were much reproached afterwards for their
blindness in failing to foresee what was coming. It was a
true bill, but it was true of everybody. One can no more
conceive Conservative than Liberal politicians acting as either
acted in the first seven months of 19 14, if they had foreseen, or
even thought it likely, that the country would be plunged into
a great war at the beginning of August. If the Conservatives
who were supporting the Ulster movement foresaw it, theirs
would seem to be the greater condemnation. The truth is
that no one foresaw it or could have foreseen it.

I am not going over this well-trodden ground in any
detail, but my own case is, I think, fairly typicalof the journal-
ists engaged in foreign affairs during these times, and I may
say frankly that I was more hopeful of British and German
relations in the early months of 19 14 than at any time since
1906. From 1906 till November, 191 1, the prospect of war
with Germany was always before us, and during the last
part of this period we had lived in constant dread of it. But
from 191 1 onwards things had seemed to be gradually on the
mend. The Morocco question had been cleared off the board
by the Franco-German agreement which followed the Agadir
crisis; the last Balkan crisis had been safely surmounted
through the Ambassadors' Conference of 191 3, and Grey had

ON THE EVE OF WAR

been publicly thanked by the Germans for his wise and
impartial handling of that dangerous affair. We were now
apparently following with Germany the policy of a Colonial
Entente which had been the first step to our friendship with
France. The naval question was always difficult, but it
seemed to be simmering and to afford ground for hope that
the Germans would at last realize that we were not to be out-
built. I saw all these things more or less from the inside,
and, taken together, they seemed to point to a detente. Both
Harcourt, who was then Colonial Secretary, and Kuhlmann
reported cheerfully of their efforts to settle the African part
of the projected agreement with Germany, and each said
that the other had shown the best spirit. Grey seemed to
see his way to the settlement of the Bagdad Railway question
on the main condition that we required, namely that the
last section from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf should be in
British hands. It was said afterwards that Haldane's visit to
Berlin had been a failure, but that was scarcely the impres-
sion I got at the time. I saw Haldane almost immediately
after he returned, and he seemed not displeased. If he had
got less than he had hoped, he had, at all events, he said, saved
one Dreadnought, and "that was worth a return ticket to
Berlin."

After the war broke out, Northcliffe charged me with
having been unduly intimate with Kuhlmann, and seemed to
suggest that there was something treasonable in our relations.
So far as I remember them, my talks with Kuhlmann at this
time were mainly about the Colonial settlement and our own
domestic affairs. He was following the Irish question, as it
was his business to do, with close attention and, I surmised,
keeping his Government informed about it. He has since
denied that he visited Ireland, and I have no reason to suppose
this disclaimer to be untrue. But he seemed to be very well-
informed about the Ulster movement, indeed better informed
than I was myself, and he used to tell me that I underrated its
seriousness. I told him what I sincerely thought — that the
British people had a habit of getting themselves tangled up in
what to the foreign eye would look like inextricable knots,
but that they generally found unexpected ways of unravelling
them at the critical moment. This may have been too

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

sanguine, but it was what one would have wished a
foreigner, and especially a German, to believe at that
moment.

But there was one occasion in my intercourse with Kiihl-
mann on which I have reproached myself with a certain
stupidity. Towards the end of April, 19 14, he asked me to
lunch with him to meet Prof. Schiemann, the famous anti-
Russian German historian, who was then visiting London. The
place was the Carlton Restaurant, but Kuhlmann had engaged a
private room instead of the table in the public room at which
we usually forgathered. We talked trivialities till the table
was cleared and the waiters had gone ; then Kuhlmann invited
the Professor to proceed with what he wished to say to me.
He instantly plunged into the relations of Germany and
Russia, and with growing animation painted them as extremely
perilous and urgent. Striking his fist on the table, he said
that Germany was threatened with an avalanche of semi-
barbarians from the East and that she must act at once if
she wished to save herself. Russia was planning new
strategic railways to threaten Germany; she had expedited
her method of mobilization and had announced for the coming
September what she called grand manoeuvres but "what I call
a mobilization of a million men against the German Empire."
Was Germany to sit quiet and wait until this destruction fell
upon her? Would we or any other country in its senses do
nothing while this menace at our doors grew to irresistible
proportions ? The sum of the matter was that war between
Germany and Russia was inevitable and that, if Germany
was to be saved, it ought to come quickly. Having developed
this theme with an energy and intensity which I cannot exag-
gerate, the Professor rounded on me and asked whether
England was actually going to step in between Germany and
Russia, and in spite of her boasted democratic institutions
throw her weight on the side of the barbarians and their
despotism against the one Power which stood between Western
Europe and the new incursion from the East.

I turned to Kuhlmann and asked if he shared the Pro-
fessor's opinions. He said he did not; he said he thought the
Professor exaggerated, and that the danger was not so immi-
nent as he said, but that he had wished me to hear the exponent

ON THE EVE OF WAR

of an opinion which undoubtedly was gaining ground in
Germany and which might become formidable if European
politics continued on their present course. I then took up
the argument with the Professor and told him that if we and
France had been compelled to make common cause with
Russia, Germany had herself mainly to thank, since her atti-
tude to us and her challenge to us by sea had compelled us to
find safety in close relations with other Powers. I imagine
that in his heart Schiemann did not disagree, for he belonged,
I believe, to the party in Germany which had desired
friendship with us as a means of insurance against the
Russian danger, but he dismissed this as immaterial com-
pared with the imminent danger with which Germany
was faced.

I have no doubt now, in the light of the sequel, that I
attached far too little importance to this conversation. I
thought Schiemann to be one of the many Professors who from
the time of Arminius Vambery onwards had been obsessed
with the idea of the Russian peril; and other Germans whom
I consulted assured me that, though there had been great
agitation in Germany on this subject earlier in the year, it
was now calming down and had better not be stoked up again
by comments from this side. But Kuhlmann was not the
man to arrange an interview of this kind in this elaborately
careful way without some intention, and I imagine now that
he wished me to understand that relations between Germany
and Russia were at the danger point. If so, I do not at all
blame him. The conviction of the German military party
that the Russian peril was increasing and that the opportunity
of grappling with it was more favourable than it ever would be
again was undoubtedly of high importance in the crisis
that followed. If they were willing to back Austria at the
cost of war with Russia and seize upon Russian mobilization
to precipitate war, it was in the belief that Russia, if given
time, would be irresistible. To have realized this aspect of
the situation more fully would certainly have been useful in
the weeks that followed.

During the year 191 5 I received anonymously from Ger-
many, via Switzerland, a series of questions which imputed
to me a wilful deceit about British dealings with Russia during

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

these months. Unfortunately, I do not seem to have pre-
served the document, but I think I can recall it with sufficient
accuracy. Would I venture to say that I was as ignorant as
I had professed to be in these months that Great Britain was
arranging a Naval Convention with Russia with the full
knowledge of her warlike intentions? Would I deny that
I, myself, had played the part of unofficial intermediary in
this transaction? I am told that a German paper during the
war published a highly circumstantial account of this supposed
transaction, in which I was mentioned by name as naving
played this part at the instigation of Fisher and Sir Edward
Grey. There was not a word of truth in it. Grey has told
all there is to tell about the "naval conversations" with Russia,
and, so far from my having been employed as an intermediary,
I never even heard of them till long afterwards. I can only
guess that the story arose from the accidental fact that once
or twice during these weeks, I met the Russian naval attache
at lunch with Arthur Pollen, who was then naval correspon-
dent of the Westminster Gazette. We lunched, if I remember
rightly, once at the Automobile Club, and once at the
Carlton Restaurant and, I suppose, were observed by
some of the Germans. Is it possible, I wonder, that
Kuhlmann, too, supposed me to be engaged in this affair,
and brought Schiemann on the scene to warn and en-
lighten me ?

For the next few weeks all foreign affairs were swamped
in the Irish question, but so far as we heard of them, they
seemed to be running quite smoothly. Lichnowsky was in
the cheerful mood which Grey described in the despatch which
is in the last of the Foreign Office Peace series, ana I had a talk
with him in which there was no hint of trouble. Then, on
June 28th, came the Serajevo murders. The London news-
papers, including the Westminster, poured out their sympathy
upon Austria, and vied with each other in expressing their
detestation of the assassins. But none of them thought that
a European war was threatened. The crime had taken
place in Bosnia, that is, on Austrian territory, and to
discover the criminals and bring them to justice seemed
to be the business of the Austrian Government and of
no one else.

ON THE EVE OF WAR

III

On July 8th, Count Tisza made an exceedingly moderate
speech in the Hungarian Chamber, and the Vienna corre-
spondents spoke of the Monarchy proceeding with the greatest
calm and reflection. If there had been anxiety at the end of
June, it had calmed down before the middle of July. Then
gradually we got the sense that something was going to happen.
On July 15 th I was called up on the telephone at my house
in Sloane Street from the Austrian Embassy at eleven in
the evening, and told that Baron Franckenstein, then Secretary
of Legation, was on his way to see me. He came and
remained for an hour and appeared to be in a state of great
anxiety. But exactly about what I could not discover. He
said that the Austrian Government had satisfied itself that the
plot against the Archduke had originated in Serbia and that
it felt bound to obtain satisfaction from the Serbian Govern-
ment. He begged me, therefore, to use my influence in the
Press and, so far as I could, with other newspapers, against
encouraging the Serbians to resist. I assured him that if the
Austrian Government could produce proofs of the complicity
of the Serbs and made any reasonable demand for satisfaction,
we should not only not encourage them to resist, we should
advise them to give full satisfaction as speedily as possible.
I reminded him that we had taken a much more serious view
of the murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga than most
other Governments had seemed to take, and that ours was the
last European Government to withdraw its refusal to recog-
nize the new Serbian regime. If there were now found to be
more Serbian regicides, he might rely upon it that we at all
events would not attempt to shield them from justice.

He did not appear to be satisfied, but kept repeating that
the question was one of life and death for Austria and that it
was very serious. I could only repeat that, if the Austrian
Government had the proofs and would produce them, I
could not see how it could be serious, for it would then be a
simple question of justice in which no other Government,
and certainly not our own, would wish to interfere.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

On the following night, I was rung up again about the
same time from the German Embassy and told that Baron
Schubert, one of the Secretaries of the Embassy, was coming
to see me. He, too, when he arrived seemed to be in a state
of great anxiety. He told me substantially the same story as
Franckenstein, but added that Germany would feel bound to
support her ally. I returned the same answer to him, and
said that if it was a mere act of justice that was required,
everybody would support Austria, supposing her proof to be
as conclusive as he assured me. But he, too, appeared to be
dissatisfied and went away saying that the situation was
extremely grave.

It was impossible to resist the conclusion that something
more than was disclosed, something that was beyond the
simple act of justice, was contemplated, and that this some-
thing was known to both the Austrian and German Ambassa-
dors. I judged them to be extremely alarmed and anxious
about the intentions of their Governments, and to be taking
steps to soften the blow in this country. I thought the best
thing I could do in the circumstances was to write in the
sense in which I had spoken to Baron Franckenstein and Baron
Schubert, and this I did on July 17th. On the following day I
received from Franckenstein a long typewritten communication
marked "Confidential," setting forth the proofs of Serbian
guilt on which the Austrian Government relied. I have it
before me as I write, and though other evidence was collected
later, this presumably was what the Austrian Government
was acting upon at the time, and all that it had then in its
possession. It seems to me still, as it seemed then,
extremely unsatisfactory, judged as legal evidence. A large
part of it consists of extracts from the Russian, Italian, and
Serbian Press protesting against the savagery which it alleged
to have been let loose on the Serbs of Bosnia after the murder
of the Archduke. Since Count Tisza himself had said that
"the excesses directed against the Serbs were very detrimental
and wrong," these protests were scarcely surprising. Of the
other items, the most important were an extract from an
article dated December 3rd of the previous year in a
Croatian newspaper published in America, and an extract
from a proclamation by the Committee of the Serbian

ON THE EVE OF WAR

Society, "the Narodna Obrana," dated June 24th, calling
upon their members to celebrate Kossovo day and reminding
them that "the unfinished part of our sacred duty calls for us."
This certainly breathed a rebellious spirit and might be called
an incitement to violence, but it came nowhere near proof of
the complicity of the Serbian Government in the Serajevo
crime, and in any case, Englishmen had no means of judging
of the importance of this Serbian Society or of the authenticity
of the document.

Certainly this did not seem to point to a simple act of
justice on conclusive evidence, and the conviction grew that
something far different was contemplated. Then on July 23rd
the Austrian ultimatum was launched and the whole situation
was illuminated. I believe, on what I think to be good evi-
dence, that, in spite of official denials, important people in
Berlin had seen and approved of the ultimatum. The point
is scarcely worth discussing in view of the Kautsky documents,
which show that the ex-Kaiser encouraged the Austrians to go
all lengths at this stage and practically gave them a free hand
to do what they chose. But I do not believe for a moment
that either Lichnowsky or Mensdorff knew what was coming.
I imagine that they were merely told that their Governments
were about to take strong action, and instructed to do every-
thing in their power to prevent British intervention.

It is extremely difficult to get back into the atmosphere of
the days that followed. Almost inevitably we read back into
it the warlike passions that were kindled when war broke out.
There were none of these in the middle of July, 19 14. The
public was puzzled, but so far as there was any discernible
drift of opinion, it was strongly against being drawn into a
quarrel about Serbia. There was none of the bracing of
loins which is seen when a British Government is manifestly
in conflict with another Government. A popular Tory paper
could put "To hell with Serbia" on its bills and be supposed
to have done a smart stroke of business, and the mass of peo-
ple, to whatever party they belonged, looked confidently to
a Liberal Government to save them from so outlandish an
adventure as taking sides in a Balkan quarrel. At this stage
only the few who followed foreign affairs knew what was
involved.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

My own view had always been that, if France and Germany
fell to fighting on any issue, we should be drawn in. That
conclusion followed from a simple weighing of the forces in
Europe and the consequences to us of a German victory over
France in the delicate balance of sea power which the Germans
themselves had established. But even apart from this, the
gross and obvious circumstances of a war between France and
Germany would, I felt sure, tend to the same conclusion.
In the last stages of the Agadir crisis, when the only question
at issue seemed to be whether the French would give what the
Germans demanded as compensation for the occupation of
Fez, one of the best-known German correspondents in London
came to see me and asked a very plain question. Did I
really think that England would intervene if war came on
what was so obviously a question between France and
Germany? I said to him, "My dear Sir, you have lived in
England for ten years and you know the English people.
Can you really see them sitting still while the German fleet
steamed through the Straits of Dover to bombard French
ports, or while the German army wiped out the French and
planted itself on the French coast?" He said "You have
answered my question and we won't argue it further." But
in July, 1 9 14, this contingency seemed very remote from the
Austro-Serbian quarrel, and in the minds of most Englishmen
it could only be linked up with it if Germans and Austrians
were determined to force it to the point at which it would
embrace Russia and France.

Now, if Germans want to know why Englishmen hold
them responsible for the war, the short answer is that this is
precisely what they seemed to be doing in the last fortnight
of July, 1 914. The thing seemed incredible and impossible
— first the ultimatum, so outrageously beyond anything that
the facts seemed to warrant, then the deliberate and obstinate
closing of the door against any and every proposal that might
have kept the peace. We saw Grey, whom we knew to be
absolutely honest, fighting desperately for the last chance, and
we saw him, as it seemed, everywhere rebuffed. The thing
seemed so irrational and so remorseless that we could scarcely
believe our eyes. It seemed as if nothing could avail against
this obstinate war-making, but to fight for peace until the

ON THE EVE OF WAR

last moment, and to aim at unity in the Government, if war
came, were clearly the two imperative duties.

The task of the Liberal journalist was one of extraordinary
difficulty. An Opposition journalist might go ahead, declare
boldly that this was a fighting business, and urge the Govern-
ment to take all risks. A Ministerial journalist supposed to
be in touch with the Government, or at least one section of it,
could only have done this at the risk of contributing to the
thing most to be feared, the shattering of the national unity
and the break-up of the Government. Moreover, it 'had to
to be remembered that every word written would be tele-
graphed to Germany and probably regarded as official. My
letter-bag daily was filled with letters declaring it to be the
supreme duty of the Government to keep out of this quarrel.
They came from Conservatives as well as from Liberals, and I
knew that there was a strong party in the Cabinet which was
of the same opinion. I agreed with the writers of these letters
so far as to believe that the one chance of peace was to fight for
it up to the very last moment, and for Grey to keep his hands
free as the sole possible mediator, as the other parties ranged
themselves on one side or the other. The Government would
thus be united in striving for peace, and on this line there
would be the best chance of its remaining united, if war came.

The situation was beyond journalism, and all that the
journalist could hope to do was not to do mischief. The
tremendous and incalculable nature of the war which threat-
ened, the necessity of the most absolute proof that we had
done everything that mortal man could do to prevent it, the
necessity, again, of keeping the public warned as the danger
increased, were the essential points, and they had to be
expounded as quietly and patiently as the tumult of the times
permitted.

Keeping in view the special objects which the Liberal
journalist was bound to have in mind, I do not think I went
very far astray, but I was wrong on one point. I entered a pro-
test against the Expeditionary Force being sent over sea, until

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

the naval issue was decided. It was one of the maxims of the
blue-water school in which I had been brought up that the
British army should not be transported over sea until its com-
munications were assured and the risk of invasion eliminated;
and the military people seemed to be flying in the face of this
principle. But I did not know then, what I knew a few days
later, that the fleet was mobilized and concentrated in such a
way as to cover the passage of the army, and still less did I
know or believe that the Germans would remain in harbour
and not make an effort to prevent the crossing of our army to
France. A raid on some part of the coast and an attempt in
force to prevent the crossing of the armies were almost uni-
versally expected at the outbreak of war, and on these points
I shared the common opinion.

The work in the office was unceasing in these days, and
I had little time for anything else. I entered into none of
the groups of journalists or politicians who were preparing
to act together for war or against war, and, not wishing to be
bombarded with conflicting opinions, I avoided the House
of Commons. It was enough that scores of correspondents
kept saying that it was my special duty to say a decisive word
for peace, and that I could not say it as they wished it to be
said. I had no touch with the Germans or Austrians.
Kuhlmann, to whom I should naturally have expressed what
I felt about German action, was strangely absent from the
scene, and it would have been inhuman to worry Lichnowsky,
whom I knew to be doing his utmost to restrain his Govern-
ment. I saw Cambon once, and he told me in a few minutes
all that I expected to learn about the French attitude and his
torturing anxiety about our attitude. I had two short talks
with Grey during the "twelve days." I ran into him on the
stairs of the Foreign Office on Saturday, August ist, and he
told me it was possible that this would be his last week at the
Foreign Office, to which I replied that in that case, next week

Erobably would be my last week at the Westminster. I saw
im again late in the evening at his room at the Foreign Office
on Monday, August 3rd, and it was to me he used the words
which he has repeated in his book, "The lamps are going out
all over Europe, and we shall not see them lit again in our
lifetime." We were standing together at the window looking

ON THE EVE OF WAR

out into the sunset across St. James's Park, and the appearance
of the first lights along the Mall suggested the thought.

The next evening (August 4th) I found myself walking
with Winston Churchill from Downing Street to the Admiralty
across the Horse Guards Parade, and he enlarged in his lively
and imaginative way on what was coming. "At midnight,"
he said, "we shall be at war, at war. Think of it, if you can —
the fleet absolutely ready, with instructions for every ship,
and the word going out from that tower at midnight. Within
a week enemy airships may be sailing over this spot on which
we stand and dropping bombs on the seats of the mighty."

I must go back for a moment to the previous Saturday,
August 1 st. On returning to my office that afternoon, I
found on my table a telegram from Bethmann-Hollweg, the
German Chancellor, addressed to me personally and begging
me to publish the following despatch which he had sent to
Count Tschirschky, the German Ambassador in Vienna, the
previous day : —

Berlin, July 30th, 191 4.

The report of Count Pourtales does not harmonize with the account
which Your Excellency has given of the attitude of the Austro-Hungarian
Government.

Apparently there is a misunderstanding, which I beg you to clear up.

We cannot expect Austria-Hungary to negotiate with Serbia, with
which she is in a state of war.

The refusal, however, to exchange views with St. Petersburg would
be a grave mistake.

We are indeed ready to fulfil our duty.

As an ally we must, however, refuse to be drawn into a world con-
flagration through Austria-Hungary not respecting our advice.

Your Excellency will express this to Count Berchtold with all emphasis
and great seriousness. — (Signed) Bethmann-Hollweg.

This reached me barely in time for publication in the last
edition, and I had to make up my mind immediately. I
decided without a moment's hesitation that it must be pub-
lished, and published it was in the last edition of the West-
minster of August 1 st. At the same time I sent a copy of it
to Grey at the Foreign Office.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

In the subsequent weeks, and many times later during
the war, I was severely criticized for having published this
document, and told that I had played into the hands of the
Germans, who were evidently attempting to hoodwink the
British public into believing that they were acting pacifically.
These criticisms were perhaps natural in the state of opinion
after the war broke out, but I believe that in deciding to
publish I did what I ought to have done and that I could not
rightly have done otherwise.

My judgment was formed on very simple grounds. The
telegram might be an effort to deceive; or it might be the
serious intimation of a last-hour attempt by Germany to
restrain Austria. In the former case it could do no harm, for
British action would be determined not by what Germany
said, but by what she did, and that would declare itself in a
few hours. In the latter case I should incur the most serious
responsibility, if I suppressed a document which offered the
faintest hope of a new move towards peace. I had no means
of judging which of these things it really was; the only
question before me was whether I should give the public the
opportunity of judging for themselves, and I had no doubt
whatever about that. The risk of its being unduly influenced
by such a communication was altogether remote at that stage
in the negotiations, and the worst result could only have been
a flicker of false hope, which a few hours would dispel.

Again, if publication created the false impression that
Bethmann-Hollweg was working for peace, suppression
would have done far worse. It would have left the Germans
free to say that an English newspaper had refused even to let
it be known that the German Chancellor was making a last
effort, and that would have gone to pile up the supposed proof
of our aggressive intention. I do not believe that any editor
in like circumstances would have acted differently, and I only
put the case because it was hotly debated without much
thought for the position of the editor. The atmosphere of
war was thrown over this controversy, and though we were
at peace with Germany on August ist, I was reproached as
if I had been in treasonable correspondence with the enemy.
All this was natural in war-time and was of little consequence,
but one criticism I did greatly resent, and that appeared in

ON THE EVE OF WAR

what professed to be a diplomatic history of the war issued
by the Foreign Office. This, I thought outrageous, or rather I
thought it outrageous that the Foreign Office should have ap-
peared to sanction the view of journalism and the responsibility
of an editor which it implied. But those were days when
suppression for propaganda had come to be thought virtuous.

What we have learnt since of German diplomacy at this
moment has established beyond doubt that Bethmann-Holi-
weg and von Jagow were, in fact, making a last-hour effort
to reverse the engine. It was too late; the ultimatum, the
refusal of a Conference, and the attack on Serbia which they
had abetted and encouraged, had made a situation in which
the control had passed from them to the soldiers. But so
far as it went, there is no reason to doubt that the effort was
genuine, or that Bethmann-Hollweg's telegram to the
Westminster honestly represented what he was trying to do.
This telegram was naturally not included in the German
documents published during the war, for these aimed at
proving a complete solidarity between the Central Powers
which were now fighting together, but the idea that it was a
deliberate deceit can no longer be entertained. No compe-
tent student would say confidendy in these days, as was said
in 1 9 14, that Austria was so completely the tool and vassal
of Germany that the appearance of Germany remonstrating
with her, as if she were playing a refractory and independent
part, must have been a pretence.

A few days later R. E. C. Long, the Berlin correspondent
of the Westminster •, presented himself at the office, telling a
breathless tale of the last days in Berlin. Among other
things he brought me a message from von Stumm,then Under-
Secretary at the German Foreign Office, whom I knew well
when he was at the German Embassy in London. "Tell Spender
from me," said von Stumm, "that he is that most dangerous
kind of Englishman, the moderate jingo." It was his parting
shot, and I am not sure even now that I know what it meant.

But by that time we were thinking of nothing but
Belgium. For nine Englishmen out of ten, everything else

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

after August ist was swept up into the question of Belgium.
The evident fact that Germany was going to violate Belgian
neutrality was not only for us the clear casus belli, but clinching
evidence of the aggressive intention in what had gone before.
For those of us who feared divisions in the Cabinet the moment
of greatest relief was when Belgium decided proprio motu to
resist the invader. I hoped that she would resist, and did not
doubt that resistance was the only honourable course for a
spirited people. But it was so evident that neither we nor
the French could defend her from the immediate conse-
quences that I felt great scruple about any appearance on our
part of urging or coercing her. The decision, it seemed to
me, must be her own, and for some hours there seemed to be
a possibility that she might retire and leave the Germans to
march through her territory under protest. The importance
of this point has scarcely been brought out in the diplomatic
histories of the negotiations. It was not only the invasion
of Belgium, it was even more the decision of Belgium to
resist invasion, that determined the issue, for on the Sunday
night the party which argued that we could not be "more
Belgian than the Belgians" and that a "simple traverse" of
Belgium would not require our intervention was still strong;
whereas on the Tuesday there was all but unanimity about the
imperative duty of assisting the Belgians when they called
upon us to come to their assistance in fulfilment of our treaty.
For reasons already explained, I never doubted that we
should be bound to intervene if France were involved in war
with Germany, and on that supposition the invasion of
Belgium could only decide the earlier or later of our inter-
vention. But for those who took a different view the distinc-
tion between the "simple traverse" of Belgium and the
attack upon a resisting Belgium was undoubtedly important,
and I think it absolves them from the charge of a sudden and
inexplicable turnabout at the last moment which was brought
against them by pacifists after the event. Morley to the end
felt a grievance against certain of his colleagues whom he
supposed to have "veered with the wind," but men who
held one view, when it seemed doubtful whether Belgium
was going to resist, might quite honourably and logically
have taken a different view when they knew that she was

ON THE EVE OF WAR

going to resist, and that she relied on us to help her in
resisting.

Some eight years later I found myself discussing these
events with a distinguished German, who was in a position
to know what was passing in Germany at this time. "Did
you realize," I asked, "that in invading Belgium you would
bring us in and turn our doubts into certainties?" "We
did," was the answer, "and we counted on that from the
beginning." "Then why did you do it?" "Because if we
went to war at all, there was nothing else to do." "This,
then," I said, "is what Bethmann-Hollweg meant by saying
that Germany was in 'a state of necessity ?' " "Undoubtedly.
And he spoke quite truly. For Germany the war on two
fronts absolutely required the swift blow at the heart of
France. If we had attacked from the East we should have
been held up by the French defences and found ourselves
powerless against a Russian attack on our other front."
" But even so, was it not the greater danger to bring Eng-
land in?" "No, of the two dangers we thought it decidedly
the less. We expected to conquer Paris in spite of your
Expeditionary Force, and then we should have been in a
far more advantageous position against you and the French
combined than we should have been against the French
alone, if we had been held up on the other route and then
exposed to a Russian attack. On military grounds it was a
perfectly sound scheme, and only miscarried because our
generalship was bad and our margin not quite enough. At
any rate it was the only way, for the alternative would have
doomed us to defeat from the beginning." In other words,
the neutralized Belgium was an impossibility for the German
Empire in the war "on two fronts."

But against this I may set another piece of evidence,
which points at least to a division of opinion among the high
military authorities in Germany. An American diplomatist
who was in Berlin at the beginning of the war told me in
later years of a conversation he had had with a very important
German general, who was dining with him in the second
week of August, 19 14. My friend said to the general :
"I suppose you are well satisfied now that war has come ?"
"By no means," was the answer; "I consider Germany to be

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

in a position of the gravest danger. The entrance of the
British has altered everything and thrown an incalculable
weight on the side of the enemy. England may be weak
now, and we may not feel her power at present, but I greatly
fear her wealth and numbers and tenacity. No, no, I am
not satisfied; the situation is most grave." This was a
fortnight before the battle of the Marne.

I imagine that in the last days before the war there was
the same heat and confusion in Germany as in other countries.
But in Germany the one point fixed was the military scheme
of scientific strategy which, in the name of its necessity, made
a mouthful of Belgium. It had been prepared over years;
there was no other, and it could not wait without losing its
efficacy until policy or morals had been considered.

CHAPTER XXI

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (19 14-18)

The Press in War — The Atmosphere of War — Mechanical Difficul-
ties— A Military Correspondent — Visits to the Front — What
was it Like? — The Vast Solitude — A Battle on the Somme —
The Feelings of the Civilian — At Verdun, 1916 — With the
Wounded — French and English Characteristics — The British
Infantryman.

IN the summer of 1909 I suggested to Mr. Balfour that in
a speech which he had promised to make to the Imperial
Press Conference of that year he should say something about
the duty of the Press in war. He wrote back promising to
do his best, but said he could think of nothing to say except
that "the Press had better keep quiet in war-time." Would
that it had been as simple as that I Within a very few days
of the outbreak of war all the Governments discovered that
the Press was going to play a vital part, and began to show a
solicitude for editors and writers which was both new and
flattering. So far from ceasing when the guns began to
speak, the war of tongue and pen became more clamorous
than ever, and something called "propaganda" was said to be
as important as munitions. Much of it was corrupting to
the Press, and a fatal snare to politicians; and truth certainly
went deeper into her well while it lasted, and only painfully
emerged when it was over. It is a time which no journalist
can look back upon with pleasure ; but while war lasts, the
calling of battle-cries, the rallying of one side and the depress-
ing of the other, and incidentally the deceiving of both
through the skilful use of newspapers, will be an inevitable
part of it. At all events, the last thing that the Press was
expected to do in the Great War was to keep quiet.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

I think I was as deeply convinced as most of my fellow
journalists that our part in the war was imperative and just,
but, as in 1899, I was slower than most in getting into the
atmosphere of war. The old habit of arguing rather than
asserting persisted, and I was not clever at the vigorous scene-
painting which was now in demand. Before six weeks were
over I had got myself into serious trouble by saying in answer
to a German paper that our object in going to war was not,
as it alleged, to humiliate and destroy Germany, but to estab-
lish law and freedom against German militarism. I hope it
was true, but a chorus immediately went up that the West-
minster wished to "spare the Germans," and for months it
was scornfully described by more "patriotic" newspapers as
the leader of "spare-the-German Press." One was always in
difficulty about things of this kind. To recriminate was
unseemly, but to let them be constantly repeated without
answer was to run a very serious risk, for, as many more
important men than myself discovered, to give a dog a bad
name was in war-time a sure way of hanging him. More
than once in these years I found myself obliged to fight for
the good name, if not the actual existence, of the Westminster
against flouts and gibes which in normal times one would
have passed in silence, but I endeavoured to do this without
the appearance of loss of temper.

On the other hand, there were great consolations. The
sense of a close touch with the reader, and the constant evi-
dence that he gave one of his interest and sympathy and careful
reading and criticism of what was written in the Westminster \
had always been one of the great pleasures of editing it, but
never did I have this support in the same degree as during
the years of the war. It was natural that the circulation should
increase in war-time, but the increase seemed to bring in
exactly the class of readers to whom the Westminster wished
to appeal; and from all parts of the country they wrote grateful
and sympathetic letters encouraging the editor to go on, and
saying that what he gave them was what they were looking
for and what helped them most in these heavy times. I
am not passing judgment on others who were addressing a
different audience in what seemed to be more forcible tones,
but they sometimes forgot that there were thousands of men

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (i 914-18)

and women to whom a quieter voice was welcome. These,
too, wished their patriotic faith to be strengthened and
confirmed, but they soon tired of mere denunciation of
the enemy and would not be starved of argument and
reason.

The mechanical difficulties of producing newspapers
became very great as the war went on. The Westminster
staff was, as newspaper staffs go, a small one, but it sent ninety
men to the war from its various departments, too many of
them never to return. Early in 191 5 my assistant-editor,
Geake, who was almost as much the Westminster as myself,
fell seriously ill, and he could not be replaced. For the greater
part of the four years nearly the whole of the editorial work
was done by Alfred Watson and myself, and when either of
us was away, which was very seldom, we had to borrow a
hand from outside. We both of us wrote more than I dare
think of, and but for Watson's indefatigable industry and ver-
satility I could scarcely have survived. It took long planning
to arrange for any period of absence, and what would have
happened if either of us had fallen ill for more than a few days
neither of us had any idea. As in the Boer War, I had again
the remarkable good fortune to find a military correspondent
of uncommon ability, E. D. Backhouse, who wrote under the
pen-name of "Edmund Dane.,, I had never seen him or
heard of him when the war began, but one article on the stra-
tegy of the war which he sent me as a chance contributor
decided me to send for him at once and ask him to take up
the regular work of writing on the military aspects of the
war. He was not a soldier, and the study of war had been
no more than his hobby, but he had remarkable flair, a good
style, and an accurate knowledge of history. He was seldom
wrong and very often remarkably right, and never more so
than when he said with complete confidence on the day after
the attack of March 21st, 191 8, that the Germans had failed,
and that the position they held was far short of what was
necessary if they were to achieve their object. Churchill said
the same thing some years later, but Backhouse was, I think,
alone among military writers in saying it at the time. I
pondered long before I passed it, but my confidence in him
was by this time so great that I felt sure he was right.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Our naval correspondent during the war was Arthur
Pollen, an old friend and contributor, and a real expert, who
presently co-operated with Hilaire Belloc in Land and Water.
He had less to do than Backhouse, for the navy kept behind
its smoke-screens, and did not encourage publicity about its
proceedings. But Pollen's articles were of the highest quality,
and carried great weight with the Service.

The Government necessarily in these times looked to
newspapers to help it in obtaining recruits for the new
armies. I felt that to be the most painful and repugnant of
all my tasks. Here was I, fifty-one years of age, sitting in the
safe shelter of a London office and urging young men, lads,
children, to go into this hell — where I knew I should not go
myself. It was we elders who between us had brought this
catastrophe on the world, and we were asking our juniors to
pay with their lives. It seemed even to make it worse that
they took up their burden so gallantly, and uttered no word
of reproach to those who had brought this terrible thing on
them. This feeling was said to be morbid, and certainly one
could not have yielded to it without becoming in fact a
"defeatist," for if the young men did not go, we were bound
to be conquered. But the pen often faltered, and there were
certain things that came glibly from other elderly pens that
I could not bring myself to write. Yet here, too, was evi-
dence that the quieter note was appreciated, and letters came
from officers and men in the trenches saying that they were
grateful to writers who seemed to understand what war
meant and what the soldiers were being asked to do and endure.

More and more I felt it to be an imperative necessity to
see and understand for myself, and before the end of 19 14 I
was twice in France for short spells, once on the self-appointed
mission described in another chapter. For the reasons already
stated, it was impossible to arrange for long absences, but
during the next three years I was five times at the front and
on the British and French lines alternatively. Between the
two I was at one time or another on nearly all the fronts from
Verdun to Ypres, and have a memory of that stupendous

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

battle-line which can never be effaced. One saw a little more
on the French lines than the British : the British were careful
of their guests and would not let them go into the trenches ;
the French took the view that the civilian who came did so
at his own risk and should be allowed to go where he chose.
Sometimes I think they took a little secret pleasure in show-
ing an elderly civilian what it was like.

What was it like? I know of no descriptions which
would enable one to realize it, unless one had seen it. Cer-
tainly it was not like anything that one had read about war, or
conceived war to be till then. Going along the front on almost
any normal day was to get an overwhelming impression of
solitariness and solitude. One afternoon in the autumn of
191 7 I sat for the best part of an hour sketching on Vimy
Ridge. During that hour I do not think I saw a human
being except our own little party, or heard a sound except
that of a few intermittent guns. Lens was away to the left
covered in a little pall of poisonous smoke through which
its tall chimneys occasionally gleamed in the sun, and across
the plain in front ran the spills of chalk which showed the
lines of trenches, converging to the point where the great
Hindenburg line began. In these trenches there were at least
300,000 men on one side and the other, but all through that
hour, except for an occasional shell coming or going there
was not a sound or a sign of life. At the end of the hour I
heard a rustling sound in the bushes below me, and there
came painfully out of the wood a little party of walking
wounded with bandaged arms and heads making for the
dressing station behind.

All along the Champagne front, the Aisne front, the
Argonne front, the scene was the same on a normal day.
One could travel a whole day very near the lines without
hearing a shot fired. Vast armies lay buried watching each
other and seemingly doing nothing. It was the only way in
which they could have even existed through the four years,
and often I have heard French officers argue that the British
were doing wrong to sacrifice men in stirring up the enemy —
doing it, I may add, not a little under the provocation of
French newspapers which more than hinted that they were
contributing less than their share. I have seen terrible and

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

spectacular night scenes which enabled me to understand
what this French criticism meant, but on the whole, for the
greater part of the time, on both fronts the life of the soldiers
was one of just lying still in mud and dirt and seeing that the
enemy did the same. For three years out of the four, half
the young manhood of Europe lay buried over against each
other, doing nothing. The one thing I found most envied
by the soldiers I talked to was my capacity to walk about.

Then after weeks of preparation — preparation so elaborate
that one could scarcely imagine its escaping the notice of the
other side — one section was chosen for a breakout, and when
the hour struck an incredible weight of metal was hurled from
one side to the other. I saw one or two of these offensives
so far as they could be seen. From the heights one looked
down on a blur of smoke and gas covering the horrible scene;
on the plains one was generally from two to three miles behind
the fighting line and with obstacles in front which hid it
altogether. The stupendous thing was what one heard. I
wrote an analysis of the sounds as heard from a four-inch
battery in a certain battle on the Somme, and the Censor paid
me the compliment of cancelling the whole article on the
ground that it was so accurate that it would reveal our gun-
positions to the enemy. In front, extending along the whole
eleven miles from Thiepval to Combles, was a chain of field-
guns over which some enormous devil seemed to be sweeping
his hands. Backwards and forwards over these miles the
sound ran in an incredibly swift staccato, rising and falling
in a stupendous rhythm from one end of the chain to the
other. Then on the line on which one was standing were the
four-inch batteries parallel to the field guns, but farther apart.
These struck a deeper note, but deeper still was the voice of
the nine-inch howitzers another mile behind, and then loudest
and deepest of all the voices of " Grandmother' ' and two
other seventeen-inch naval guns far in the rear, which came
in like the big drum in an orchestra at intervals of so many
silent bars. It is customary to speak of the noise of guns as
deafening, but except in an enclosed space I never found it so.
On the vast open plateau of the Somme it was more like a
thunderstorm, against which one could easily speak and hear.
The total effect was magnificently orchestral; there were great

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

waves of sound and sudden chords of extraordinary beauty.
But the censor specially frowned on my attempt to express
some of these in musical terms.

As a mere display of human energy the thing was stupen-
dous. Battery on battery, one behind the other, over a space
eleven miles long and five miles deep, all hurling tons of
metal into space for hours together, more tons, I suppose,
than were discharged in all the battles of the world put
together before 19 14 — and the same number of tons coming
over from the other side and raising sudden black fountains
from the ground wherever the eye travelled. I was three
hours in trie field on one occasion, and when I turned back,
the uproar was unabated and nobody knew what had hap-
pened. I think we advanced two hundred yards that day
on two miles of the front. And this was only one of a
hundred battles on the same or a larger scale. There was
something sublime and awful in the sight and sound of it,
and I cannot deny that I felt the thrill of the fighting man
together with a torturing anxiety about what was happening
on the other side of the ridge, but looking back on it, it
seems a nightmare of insanity and cruelty.

Not to be able to see beyond the ridge was always an
exasperation. The soldiers were resigned to it, and many
told me dejectedly that they expected to see no more of the
war than the few acres on which they were interminably
planted, and would in all likelihood leave their bones. But
I had come out to see, and was always looking for some hill-
top or place of vantage from which something could be seen,
and perpetually failing to find it. One day in a wild moment
I thought of going up in a sausage balloon and my guide
solemnly made application for me. The answer was, "If
Mr. Spender will certify in writing that he is an expert para-
chutist, his application shall be considered." I understood
the meaning of that when in the following year on another
front I saw a sausage balloon attacked by an aeroplane.

What are the feelings of the elderly man of peace who
suddenly finds himself in these scenes ? Of course, I can say

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

nothing of the more terrible experiences, those of the men
who went "over the top," who engaged in the fearful solitary
enterprises of trench raids or of flying over the lines. Seeing
it only on the fringe was to be constantly humbled by the
thought of the incredible bravery of those who dared these
things. Like other visitors, I dipped in and came out and
returned almost every night to a good dinner and comfortable
bed. But necessarily I was often under shell fire, and I have
heard the sniper's bullet go singing past my ears and felt the
shrapnel falling on my tin hat. And speaking for myself
I think I answer the question quite honestly when I say that
I was often afraid before, and in an odd way afterwards, but
seldom afraid when I was in it. The stir and busde and sense
of company, the feeling that we were all in it together, the
absorbing interest of the terrible near thing, kept one going
without thought of much else. Plato says that courage con-
sists in knowing what ought to be feared and what not.
But that was no help at all. I saw gallant men falling flat to
avoid shells which seemed to me at a comfortably safe
distance, and earned unmerited marks for gallantry because I
stood upright and went on taking notes. Of the noises in the
air I never could be sure which were our shells and which the
enemy's shells, and found it a good plan to assure myself that
they were all our shells. I went down a tunnel to see a mine
preparing under the enemy's trenches and was glad to be
somewhere so dry and safe. An hour later it was blown up
by another mine which happened to be in another tunnel
beneath it. I was in one of three cars containing visitors
which went out one morning from a certain headquarters,
and for one of them which carried a distinguished foreigner a
specially safe route was chosen. It received a "direct hit"
on a high road five miles from the front and was wiped out
with all its occupants. Things of this kind were constantly
happening, but you saw thousands of men going about their
business with complete unconcern, and you came to think
no more about them than you would about the chance of
being run over in Piccadilly Circus.

Yet occasions were staged in a manner which called for a
conscious effort to brace oneself. I went into Verdun at the
beginning of October, 191 6, when the battle of the trenches

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

was over. But the Germans were making a persistent effort
to destroy the town, and seemed to have all the cross-roads
and approaches accurately registered. We came from Bar-
le-Duc by car on a day of driving rain, and went first to see
General Nivelle, whose headquarters were in a bleak-looking
house standing on a high down about seven miles to the west
of the town. His charm and courtesy made a delightful
impression, and I shall always remember the perfect accom-
plishment of the little lecture that he gave us on the strategical
situation, and the neat precision with which he played with
his pointer over the maps. As we left to go he said, "Gen-
tlemen, I understand that you wish to go into Verdun.
Well, let me see." Then out of his pocket he took
a little black note-book, and after examining it a moment
added, "I see that yesterday the number of high-explosive
shells falling in Verdun between the hours of 6 a.m.
and 6 p.m. was 400. To-day the visibility is lower
and there will not be quite so many. Good morning,
gentlemen.' '

Just outside the town we were met by an officer who made
us an elegant little speech in the Gallic manner : "Gentlemen,
the French Republic considers that the highest honour it can
pay its guests is to take them into Verdun, but, gentlemen, I
should add that the French Republic cannot guarantee to
take them out." This was punctuated by a loud explosion
at which the speech-maker laughed uproariously, and so the
scene was set. I am bound to say that it satisfied expectations.
We walked up and down that town for two hours to an
accompaniment of shells scrunching through masonry,
shells exploding violentiy on the stone pave, shells bringing
walls down and sending chimney stacks and tiles into the
streets. And after each shock, as one listened, the horse-
chestnuts came pattering down from the little trees that lined
the streets. An Italian officer who was one of my companions
seemed honestly to think it great fun, but I, as honestly,
confess that I never had a more blessed sense of relief than
when I got finally into the vast dug-out which provided shelter
for the officers and men of the garrison. The sentinel we
passed as we went into this burrow was killed and his place
taken by another before we came out.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

But all through this day and the following days when we
went down the "arch of shells" into the Argonne and dodged
the snipers in the woods, one was kept going by the extra-
ordinary interest of the scene and the excitement of the mo-
ments when we raced past the danger spots. And if anything
was needed to sustain one's spirits, it was to discover that
among the stream of visitors to this front only one was
judged to have been "fussy about shells" and he was going
down to posterity as the typical anti-hero of the Verdun saga.
They had made a verb of his name and construed it through
all its tenses; they had invented a character for him and
scenes in his domestic life; they said that he was a vegetarian
with an inordinate appetite for soup. He was, I am glad to
say, not of British nationality, and it seemed better to die a
thousand deaths than to join nim on this pedestal.

I know that Verdun entered like iron into the soul of the
French. In the heart of the great dug-out was a hospital,
and beside it a little chapel with lights in it, and there the
dead lay and the wounded came to pray. I am not ashamed
to say that the sight of it gripped me till the tears came, but
out under the shells there was a kind of gallant gaiety which
was extraordinarily French. There was the best of every-
thing in the messes, the delicious wine of the country in big
carafes, the poulet en casserole which might have been cooked
at the Beaulieu Reserve, serviettes and table-cloths snow-
white as in the best hotels. The poilu, too, had his share of
the good things. Twice a day in the Argonne, where the
trenches lay so close that French and German almost touched
each other, a miniature train, heated from end to end, went
the round of the French trenches bearing cans of steaming
hot bonne femme soup. In all this business the French seemed
never to forget the art of living, and behind these terrible lines,
and even in the middle of them, they managed things so skil-
fully that one seemed half the time to be taking part in a
cheerful picnic with the shell and the bullet as incidents in
the entertainment, which one was expected to greet with
applause and laughter. I never heard heartier laughter than
when, on the encouragement of my guides, I put my head
up over a trench and the sniper's bullet came whistling past
before I got it down.

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

Somehow this kept one's spirits up and carried one through
what would otherwise have been an exhausting time. To be
almost alone in a heavily bombarded little town was, I think,
the most formidable experience of the civilian who was not
called upon to "go over the top," for there you were without
the sense of support that numbers give, or the shelter that
the trench and its dug-outs seemed to afford. But day after
day of it, even after comfortable nights spent in safe quarters,
did wear one down, and in 191 6, when I had added ten days
on the Somme to ten days on the Meuse, I came back
thoroughly exhausted and wondering more than ever how
mortal men could live through months and years of it.
Certainly time hardened one to the sights and sounds; one
ceased to start at explosions or wince at shells, but there was
the unconscious effort of inhibition, and that must have told
on any ordinary nervous constitution. The sense of having
a set task in a given place which the wandering civilian never
could have, was, I imagine, a great help, but when an elderly
French General said with a sigh, "La guerre a ete beaucoup trop
prolongee" I understood what he meant.

I never went to the front without visiting surgeons' dug-
outs, casualty-clearing stations and hospitals, and sometimes
I had little commissions from the medical authorities to in-
quire about this or that. It was an enormous relief to me to
find that I could witness what I saw without flinching. That
belonged entirely to the atmosphere of war. I certainly
could not have looked on at an operation in an ordinary hos-
pital before the war without fainting, and I am not sure I
could now. But I have stood in the operating theatre of a
French casualty-clearing station after an action and watched
seven operations going on simultaneously — some of them
amputations — and felt only an intense interest. I have seen
men maimed and killed by falling shells, and, though filled
with the pity and terror of it, was not unnerved. I have been
with the stretcher-bearers from the trenches to the casualty-
clearing stations and sat with the surgeon in his dug-out

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

while he gave first-aid. I can imagine no scene of human
suffering more heartrending than that in the vast hall of the
Boulogne Casino — then called Base Hospital No. 14 — after
one of the battles on the Somme, when the beds crowded the
floor spaces and overflowed on to staircases and corridors,
and the surgeons moved about among the unsorted wounded
and for lack of theatre space did "flash" operations on the
spot, in the hope of saving life. That too, I have witnessed,
and I can never forget the faint smell of ether, the groans of
the wounded and dying, the pall of hell that was over it all.
And yet, on the other hand, the same scene is a superb
memory of skill and service and heroic endurance. The
quickness of the surgeons, the merciful efficiency of the nurses,
the coolness and composure and orderliness with which the
incredible emergency was being met, the patient unselfishness
of the wounded, the smiles on the faces of the men past hope
— how shall one not remember this also as a triumph of the
human spirit? It seemed to me that to see this side of the
war, to satisfy oneself that everything possible was being
done, and endeavour to speak truthfully about it, was one of
the duties of the writer on this scene.

Being alternatively on the French and British lines led
one to note certain contrasts in the characters of the two
peoples. The French were for ever saying that we were "so
rich," and held up their hands at what they deemed to be our
gross extravagance. Behind the French lines the repairing
shops, the lorry sheds, the staff-offices, the bakeries, were
miracles of thrifty improvisation. Any old barn or derelict
house was made to serve a purpose. Behind our lines were
solid new structures, often of brick or concrete, but in any
case new hutments brought from England. These were
the source of the myth that ran among the peasants that we
meant to stay in the country, for they could not imagine our
spending all this money unless we had that intention. Again,
the French thought that we spent an inordinate quantity of
money and time on grooming, polishing and cleaning.

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

Especially we seemed to them to be infatuated about horses
and their toilettes. Again and again I was asked what we
were doing with all those horses on the Somme, and how
could we spare the men to groom them? On the British
lines you seldom saw an unwashed lorry; on the French hardly
any that were not splashed to the roof with mud. Out of
the trenches every British soldier had bright buttons, carefully
brushed uniform, well-shaved chin and neady cropped hair.
The French poilu was often untidy and muddy, and quite
often had a week's growth of beard. The contrast seemed
in French eyes to be a reproach to us rather than to them.
This was war, and how in war could we spare the time or the
money for these refinements?

The French had a gaiety which was quite different from
British humour, and our jokes were often as inexplicable to
them as theirs to us. I remember repeating to a French
officer who knew England well and spoke English, the
parody of the "Hymn of Hate" which at one time was up-
roariously popular in the British lines : —

Whom do we 'ate by sea and land ?
Whom do we 'ate to beat the band ?
England, England.

"Oh, but," he said, "you have got it wrong. You mean
Germany, not England." "No," I said, "I haven't got it
wrong; I mean 'England, England.' " But you can't really
mean," he persisted, "that they are allowed to sing that."
"Yes, I do," I said, "that's just the point of it." But explana-
tions were useless, and I could see that he was genuinely
shocked. On the other hand, if you had tried to explain to
the Tommy the neat little banter which amused the poilu, you
would have failed just as egregiously.

Wherever the French and British armies came into con-
tact, it was impressed upon one that the two most linguistically
unaccomplished nations in the world were fighting side by
side. The gulf of language was seldom bridged; the French
seemed to make no effort, and though some British soldiers
tried conscientiously to master certain French phrases, the
conviction that they ought to be pronounced in the English
way and that no concession should be made to the weakness
of the French in pronouncing them another way, rather

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

frustrated the good intention. The British soldier billeted
in the French village seemed to have established a complete
understanding with the French woman and still more the
French child, and neither seemed to feel the need of intelligible
parts of speech. The linguists on the lines were the German
prisoners, many of whom understood both French and
English better than either understood the other. It was part
of the French discipline that there should be "no fraternizing
with the Boche," but nothing could prevent the Tommy from
giving him a cigarette and answering a civil question in a
friendly way. The British instinct for shaking hands after
the quarrel, especially if the other fellow was down and out,
was irrepressible in all the ranks, and out there one
heard none of the talk about the "Huns" which was
fashionable among non-combatants. But on the French
side there was a feeling about the "hereditary enemy"
and the " defiler of the soil " which kept this wholesome
chivalry in check.

One could not look close without seeing that each nation
had the defects of its qualities, but the qualities of both were
so extraordinary that it seems churlish to dwell on the defects.
The horrors of war are beyond all telling, and those who have
witnessed them are bound to see that they are kept in remem-
brance. Yet with each memory comes also the recollection
of the exultation which met the agony, and the unconquerable
mind which rose above the confusion. And, above all, of
the patient cheerfulness with which the ordinary man faced
the everyday emergencies. Perhaps I may quote one passage
written at this time : —

The praise of the British infantryman is on everyone's lips. Nothing
too much can be said about his bravery, his endurance, his helpfulness to
his pals, his indomitable good humour. Picture after picture of him
remains printed in the memory. I see him swinging his legs and chaffing
gaily in the lorry going up to the trenches which would be a veritable
tumbril to the faint-hearted. I see him marching with the discipline of
the old soldier, though he only put on khaki eight months ago, and
singing as he goes; I see him shaving before a cracked mirror at the
entrance to his dug-out with the shells falling on the hillside close by,
and at all odd moments indefatigably brushing, cleaning, washing, polish-
ing, so that he may go smart as a soldier should, in this world of blood
and vermin. I see him shattered and bloodstained, waiting on his stret-
cher for the surgeon, and still smiling. I see him again in his billet behind

THE JOURNALIST IN WAR (1914-18)

the lines, helping the women, petting the children, chaffing the girls,
friendly and courteous and irreproachable in his manner. And I see him
at all times running to help when the lorry is bogged, or the horse down,
or the shells fall.

To be on this scene for even a short time was to get an
immense respect for humanity in the mass, and to feel a
rising anger at the collective insanity which put it to these uses.

CHAPTER XXII

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

After the Battle of the Marne — Breakdown of the Medical Service —
A Self-imposed Mission to France — In Paris — American
Help — The Scene at Villeneuve-Triage — A Council of War
— A Campaign in London — The Scene in Paris — Myron
Herrick and His Task — The First Bomb — Kitchener's Tit-for-
Tat — A Mission to Boulogne — The Dardanelles Wounded —
Purloining a File — A Comment by Sir Alfred Keogh.

I GO back over the ground to tell a story which has not
been told before, but which may and, I think, ought to
be told now.

A week after the battle of the Marne my wife who, through
her convalescent hospital at Tankerton, was in close touch
with hospital authorities in London, began to get intimations
of a breakdown of the medical service of the Expeditionary
Army. I was reluctant to believe them. I had known Sir
Alfred Keogh, the previous Director-General of the Royal
Army Medical Service, and had witnessed the elaborate care
with which he and Haldane had prepared this, as all other
parts, of the organization of the Expeditionary Force. It
seemed to me more probable that men who had been exposed
for the first time to the horrors of war and had suffered
nervous shock as well as wounds, had exaggerated the inevit-
able sufferings of the wounded than that there had been any
serious failure of the medical service. At all events, my face
was set against flying to publicity on the facts as I knew them.

But the rumours persisted, and my wife said presently
that, if I felt unable to act upon them, it was our plain duty
to go and see for ourselves. Acting at once on the thought,
she went the next morning, while I was at work at the West-
minster', to both the Foreign Office and the French Embassy,

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

and obtained passports and visas for our departure the fol-
lowing day for Paris. The idea of civilians going on unspeci-
fied errands to France was at that moment beyond the ambit
of official thought, but somehow she contrived to rush the
guard. I should have been helpless without her, and it
seemed in the sequel as if her many years of work in the
London Hospital and in her own little hospital at Tankerton
had found their foreordained purpose.

The route was by Dieppe, and at Victoria Station we met
Esher, Dr. Barron, and an old friend, A. H. Fass, who also
was going out on a medical errand and had with him a hospital
nurse. We had but the vaguest idea what to do when
we got to Paris, and when we arrived our task seemed more
than ever hopeless. Every exit towards the front was barred;
it was impossible to move outside the city boundaries without
passes with which we were unprovided. The British Ambas-
sador had gone to Bordeaux and the British Embassy was
closed. Even the British Consulate was closed. The sole
British representative seemed to be Cardew, the British
Chaplain, who was gallantly standing by his flock, many of
them poor people who had been unable to get away in the
general exodus of foreigners, and who were otherwise without
a shepherd. Most of the wealthy French had gone, and
thousands of others were clamouring for trains to take them
south. Everyone seemed to be listening for the sound of
guns, for though the immediate peril had passed with the
Battle of the Marne, the Germans were still within forty
miles, and no one dared say with any certainty that they
would not break through again and crash down upon
the city.

Where to go and how to learn anything about the British
wounded were bewildering questions to which, for some hours,
we saw no answer. Then we remembered a hint that Esher
had given us — which was to go to the American Embassy.
There we found one of the bravest of men and best of friends
to both French and British, Myron Herrick, the Ambassador.
The other Governments had instructed their Ambassadors to
follow the French Government to Bordeaux, and for some
of them, and especially the Allied Ambassadors, there was no
choice. Herrick had simply informed his Government that,

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

unless otherwise instructed, he should stay, and he sat abso-
lutely alone in the diplomatic wilderness, bringing help and
succour not merely to his own countrymen but to all distressed
foreigners. Upon him fell the burden of guarding enemy
interests, and of finding money, passports and visas for a
rising tide of American, British, and other foreigners stream-
ing into Paris from the various parts of Europe in which they
had been stranded. Together with his staff he took every-
thing on, and rapidly improvised an organization which
brought order into this chaos, and enabled thousands of
hunted people to get back to their homes. With him was
his wife, a woman of rare spirit and courage, who also had
determined to stay and was now taking the lead in organizing
the American Colony to help the sick and wounded.

Herrick made no complaint; the heavier the work, the
more patiently and cheerfully he turned to meet it, and when
the crowd surged about the Chancellery, his staff seemed always
cool and polite and helpful, though many of them were work-
ing eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. As emergency
work it was beyond praise, but I felt indignant that all this
should be put upon them, and got a letter back by the night
courier to Grey urging that the British Consulate should be
re-opened and a part of the Embassy work resumed in Paris.
That, fortunately, was done within a few days. Then we
turned to our medical inquiries and found that, with all his
other duties, Herrick had been active in this also. We
learnt that ever since the Battle of the Marne young Americans
had been at work picking up the wounded, including many
British, and bringing them back to the hospital at Neuilly
which the American Colony had organized and equipped to
meet the emergency. The Ambassador himself had been
repeatedly over the ground, and in describing his experiences
he told us a story which has always remained in my memory.
This was of three British soldiers whom he found in a French
village, bedraggled, mud-stained, wounded and apparently
homeless. He offered to take them back to Paris in his car
and promised to look after them, but they refused to move,
and he had to go on and leave them. Returning later, he
found them still there and begged them again to come with
him. Still they refused, but this time they explained. Their

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

Colonel had been killed and he was buried just there. The
Colonel's lady had been very kind to them and they would
like to be able to tell her that they had not left him alone in a
foreign country. The villagers gave them food and a shake-
down at night and, thanking the gentleman for his kindness,
they would stay where they were until they were fetched and
could report where the Colonel lay, and see that he was
properly cared for.

Everything that we heard confirmed what we had learnt

in London. There was a shortage of everything — doctors,

nurses, ambulances, hospital equipment. Herrick made no

criticisms; his advice to us was simply to go and see for

ourselves and form our own conclusions. But he made this

possible by lending us a car and providing us with passes

which enabled us to move freely outside Paris. Proceeding

towards the Aisne, we made the clearing-station of Villeneuve-

Triage our base for inquiries. By this time it was no longer a

question of picking up the wounded on the field, but of

bringing the wounded by rail from the front. The first thing

that struck us was that there were no hospital trains, or, to

be strictly accurate, there was one, but it was out of action in

a siding. The wounded were coming down from the Aisne

in the fourgons which one sees on French railways marked to

carry so many horses and so many men (which for ordinary

purposes means so many conscript soldiers). In some cases

they were slung one on top of the other, and owing to the block

on the line, the trains were taking from seventy to eighty hours

to do the short distance, some twenty-five miles from the

front to Villeneuve-Triage. It was no part of the scheme for

dealing with the wounded that they should be detrained at

Villeneuve-Triage, or be taken to Paris. The trains were to go

via Rouen to the coast, and the wounded to be embarked

in hospital ships for England, save a few grave cases which

might be taken out at Rouen. Yet after seventy or eighty

hours on the road, there was hardly a case which ought not

to have been taken out and put in hospital anywhere in

France rather than subjected to the torture of the further

journey to the coast.

But the trouble was that there was no equipment for
dealing with seriously wounded men at Villeneuve-Triage,

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and no organization for dealing with them in Paris. The
small staff at Villeneuve worked heroically with miserably
inadequate means at desperate cases, whose one chance was
to be taken out and given surgical treatment at once. The
splendid MacNab, a London dentist, who was serving as an
officer with the London-Scottish Territorials, and was after-
wards killed on active service, found himself requisitioned to
do major operations, and he was fortunately qualified as a
surgeon, though he had had no recent practice. There were,
of course, many excellent surgeons in Paris, but there were
mountainous obstacles in the way of getting them to Ville-
neuve in conformity with regulations, and corresponding diffi-
culties in fetching the necessaryequipment. In this situation the
Americans again came to the rescue, and improvised an ambu-
lance service to tap the trains and take the worst cases back
to hospitals in Paris. Rich men lent their cars and drove
them themselves at all hours of the day and night; all available
Ford cars were laid hands on and converted to hold stretchers.
These were driven and served by American lads who had
hastily learnt stretcher drill, and proved most deft and tender
in handling the wounded. I went out with these ambulance
parties for two nights and saw them at work. I cannot
describe what I saw; after fourteen years I can scarcely bear
to think of it. In the subsequent three years I saw many
terrible things at the front, but none which quite equalled
that scene by night when we approached those train-loads of
suffering men and took from them the few for whom we had
space on our ambulances and whose need seemed to be the
greatest.

After three days spent in this way, we held a council of
war at the Hotel Westminster, and brought into it the com-
petent medical opinion without which our testimony might
have been dismissed as that of mere amateurs acting on an
emotional impulse. With this aid we drew up a brief
memorandum,* and then on the spot I sat down and wrote a

* The memorandum summarizing our practical proposals which we drew up on
this occasion is in my possession and runs as follows :

Draft for immediately necessary scheme of medical reform drawn up after visits to
lines of communication, Paris-Marne, October 2nd, 1914.

(1) Abolish the idea that seriously wounded men can be brought to England.

(2) Establish sufficient Base Hospitals with motor ambulances (as far as possible)
to bring in the wounded.

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

letter to Grey setting out the chief facts as we had observed
them. Certain things were clear. The shortage of surgeons,
nurses, ambulances, hospital equipment was such as could be
made good at once, if it were only known, and there could be
no excuse for its continuing, if it was known. Next,
if it were not made good, there would be an alarming wastage
in the fighting army. The interminable periods spent by the
wounded in the horse-boxes and the inevitable results when
trains were crowded and doctors were few, and there were no
nurses to watch the patients and attend to urgent needs,
accounted fully for the gas gangrene and other complications
from which large numbers of even the lightly wounded were
found to be suffering, when finally they reached hospital.
Humanity apart, these things could not go on without rapidly
diminishing the fighting strength and putting a large propor-
tion of the wounded finally out of action.

But the remedy, as medical opinion agreed, was first of all
the establishment of general hospitals and casualty-clearing
stations in France, and then the scrapping of the horse-boxes
and the substitution for them of regularly equipped ambulance
trains, with doctors, nurses and orderlies on board. These
might be detained and shunted while the lines were blocked,
with the minimum of suffering or injury to the wounded men,
but the conditions we had observed would continue so long
as thefourgons were used. Here, however, there were serious
obstacles. The French were greatly opposed to the institution
of hospital trains, thinking them an unnecessary extravagance;
and though Sir Alfred Keogh, the former Director-General

(j) Lay down the principle that from the moment a man is wounded he passes from
the control of the fighting service into that of the medical service. The fighting
service to be instructed to give all possible facilities to the medical service, which
shall decide the filling and evacuating of the hospitals.
(4) When men are convalescent they shall be sent to Convalescent Homes in
England, and when discharged from these they shall pass back to their respec-
tive depots,
(j) A supreme authority to supervise the entire medical service in France and at

home.
This memorandum would, no doubt, have been drawn up differently if we had
known, what we learnt subsequently, that "Casualty Clearing Stations" were part of the
organization of the Expeditionary Force, and included in "War Establishments" after
the Boer War. These were intended to be expansible units with necessary transport,
the last being added in a footnote to "War Establishments," but apparently expunged
some time after 191 1. The necessity for this organization was proved by experience in
South Africa, and had it been utilized from the outset, as intended, the conditions
described in this chapter could not have arisen.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

of the R.A.M.S., who was then working with the Red
Cross at Rouen, obtained a good many sleeping-cars and
had them converted for the use of the wounded, most of them
were not brought into use till later. We were often told in
those days that the French soldier knew and was prepared for
the realities of war, and that his British partner must be
equally enduring. It seemed to us that this could not be
accepted as the last word, and that in any case it was our duty
to state the facts as we found them, and insist that a remedy
of some sort should be discovered.

So the letter was sent off by the night mail, and my wife
and I followed by the first train in the morning. We tele-
graphed to Haldane en route saying that we should come
straight to his house, and asking, if possible, that Grey might
be there to meet us. Haldane was there, and Grey came in a
little later. We told our story, and both decided that it
required instant action, which was taken before the day was
out. Esher, I believe, had himself sent in a report much to
the same effect as ours about the same time. I cannot speak
from knowledge of what followed. My wife went to the
War Office, and though she was kept in the outer courts, I
think she managed to convey that we were in earnest and to
get this conveyed to the inner sanctum. I confined myself
to saying that, though the last thing I desired was a newspaper
sensation, I should, if necessary, tell the whole story in the
Westminster Gazette and risk whatever penalties from the
censorship I might incur in so doing. An eminent com-
mander in the field said that he would not have "civilians
yapping at his heels," but inquiry brought confirmation of our
reports, and the American witnesses were unanimous. Other
members of the Government now lent their aid, and Harcourt,
as he told me in later years, put on extreme pressure.
Kitchener was not unsympathetic, but he had taken the medi-
cal service for granted, and was overwhelmed with the multi-
farious duties that he had taken upon himself. But he acted
with characteristic decision when his mind was made up, and
by the end of the week, the former Director-General, Sir
Alfred Keogh, who had devised the original scheme of
medical service for the Expeditionary Force, was back in his
place; and within ten days surgeons, nurses, and fully

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

equipped ambulance parties were pouring into France, and
what proved to be the finest and most scientific medical service
with which a fighting army was ever equipped was on its way
to being established.

The breakdown of a medical service is in certain circum-
stances so inevitable an incident in war that an onlooker must
be wary in passing judgment on it. From what I was told
later, I should say that at the beginning the medical authorities
simply acted on the current beliefs of their military superiors
about the character and duration of the war. They imagined
that it would be comparatively short, that the British and
French would hold the Germans and, as soon as reinforced,
advance. In the meantime the armies would be fighting
within a short distance of the coast, and a few hours' journey
by rail and sea would bring the greater part of the wounded
back to hospitals in England. A few general hospitals at
centres like Amiens and Rouen would be necessary for the
gravely wounded who might be unable to travel, but for the
rest, hospital ships would serve as casualty-clearing stations,
and the general hospitals would be in London and the south
of England, where the wounded would be near their friends
and have the best medical attention. Why, then, go to the
trouble and expense of sending a large medical equipment to
France and setting up what must be an inferior medical service
abroad, when we had a first-class and easily accessible one
at home?

Nothing could have been better on paper, and all rational
argument seemed to be in its favour. But it was shattered by
the realities as they proved to be. The armies broke, the
retreat began, the few general hospitals were swept back,
the railways were either destroyed or choked with munitions,
supplies and reinforcements; and journeys to the coast which
the peace time-tables put at two or three hours took anything
up a hundred hours. An imaginative realization of the con-
ditions of war before it takes place is apparently one of the
things of which human nature is incapable, and if wars con-
tinue, we may take it for granted that each generation in turn
will find itself struggling with a vast and unforeseen confusion,
to which no preparations are adequate. Being on the spot,
and seeing the conditions with my own eyes, I felt no

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

disposition to pillory anybody in September, 19 14, but our
indignation did, I am afraid, boil over when there seemed to
be a reluctance to face the facts and take the obviously neces-
sary steps. Here in this country was a complete medical
service asking only to be allowed to go, and out there in
France was desperate need. It only needed the word and
the thing would be done — but the word, we insisted, must be
given at once or the public must be told. A month later
someone else, no doubt, would have said the same thing, but
the continuance for an unnecessary day of what we had wit-
nessed seemed unimaginable.

In order to complete this story, something more must be
said about the services rendered by the American Colony in
Paris in 1914. That Colony was supposed before the war to
contain an exceptionally large number of light-hearted and
pleasure-loving people, but, if so, it showed rare grit at the
critical moment. When the Ambassador decided to stay,
a large number of the wealthier Americans who might have
departed at any moment decided to stay with him, and, as
soon as the question of the woundedbecame urgent, set to work
to provide a hospital of their own. For this purpose they
obtained possession of the partially completed buildings of the
Lycee Pasteur at Neuilly, and by the third week of September
had converted it into a well-equipped hospital. The diffi-
culties were very great, especially the difficulty of obtaining
trained nurses, who were practically non-existent in France
at that moment. But whatever a willing spirit could do was
done. As the wounded came in, men and women worked
night and day, the men doing every kind of menial work,
the women everything that could be entrusted to the untrained,
and under stern necessity a good deal that is usually entrusted
only to the trained. Many of the cases were difficult and
painful. There was a large number of tetanus cases; and
even light wounds were complicated with gas gangrene, as
the result of the terrible conditions of transport. The
American lads working the ambulances brought their patients

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

here and the surgeons were ready at all hours of the night.
Many a British soldier owes his life to the treatment that he
received in this hospital, and many others must retain grateful
memories of the care and kindness they received there. For
a quickly improvised hospital, nothing could have been better.
All that money could buy had been provided, and the spirit
which accepted every task, however forbidding it might seem,
was beyond praise.*

It required real courage to choose this work in preference
to the easy escape which was open to the well-to-do neutral,
and still more to persist in it as the military situation developed.
When Herrick decided to stay, he immediately began to
receive urgent warnings, undoubtedly inspired, of the risk
he was running. Cables from sources in touch with the
Germans intimated that terrible things were in store for
Paris, and that there could be no discrimination in favour of
the Ambassador or his countrymen and countrywomen.
For weeks together the prospect before the people of Paris
was that of being drenched with shells and starved into sub-
mission. The public parks were crowded with sheep and
bullocks, proclaiming only too visibly that the authorities
were expecting and preparing for a siege; whispers of unheard-
of terrorism falling indiscriminately on men, women and
children were in the air. The Germans, I think, had deliber-
ately circulated these rumours, for to break the moral of the
enemy and cow him into submission was a deliberate part of
their military plan, and it led them in those days to welcome

* Those who helped in these efforts were many scores, even hundreds, but I should
like to record the names of a few. Among the women workers were Mrs. W. K.
Vanderbilt, Mrs. George Munro, Mrs. Laurence V. Benet, Miss Florence H. Mathews,
Mrs. Henry Payne Whitney, Mrs. Spencer Cosby, Miss Mary Willingale (Chief Nurse),
Miss Grace Gassett (Chief of the Surgical Dressing Department). Capt. Frank Mason
was Chairman of the Ambulance Committee, and on the same committee were Mr*
Laurence V. Benet, Mr. F. W. Monahan, Mr. Robert Bacon and Mr. L. W. Twyeffort«
Mr. Laurence V. Benet was Chairman and Commandant of the Transportation Depart-
ment, and working with him were Dr. Edmund Gros (Ambulance Surgeon), Mr. G.
E. Lopp, Mr. A. W. Kipling (Captain of the Ambulances), and Mr. H. Piatt Andrew
(Inspector of Ambulances). The Medical Staff included Dr. Winchester Du Bouchet
(Surgeon in Chief), Dr. J. A. Blake, Dr. Edmund Gros, Dr. J. P. Hutchinson, and
Dr. R. Mignot (Chiefs of the Service), and Mr. G. B. Hayes (Chief Dental Surgeon).
Mr. and Mrs. Myron Herrick were active in all departments. After 1914, when the
British need had been supplied, the hospital continued its work for French soldiers
and expanded to a maximum of 625 beds. Miss Williams, the nurse whom our friend
A. H. Fass brought out with him, immediately started work at Neuilly. She was in
the early days one of the few trained nurses in this hospital, and remained doing
admirable work in it for some years.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and encourage the stories of their own ferocity which after-
wards they disclaimed. And, undoubtedly, if Paris had come
under their guns or their aircraft, it would have suffered what,
according to any standard previous to 1914, would have
been unheard-of barbarities.

In all the subsequent four years I remember nothing quite
like the atmosphere in Paris during this time. Seven weeks
of terrifying events had exhausted emotions and left a sort
of numbness behind. The centre of the city was a desert,
and most of the shops were closed. Sitting in the Tuileries
Gardens, we found ourselves almost alone in the most
crowded hour of the day. We were asked repeatedly if we
had provided ourselves with the means of escape if the
Germans came back, and were thought extremely rash when
we replied that we had not. I was in Paris many times
subsequently during the war, and once when Big Bertha was
firing at the city and the Germans were again not so far off.
But then life was going on as usual ; the streets were thronged
and the big gun was a jest. In September, 1914, the great
fact which weighed on the spirits was that the Government
had gone and showed no sign of coming back. What that
implied was in everyone's mind. Paris had the sense of
being left to her fate, and as yet none of the familiarity with
war conditions which afterwards hardened the heart and
braced the nerves.

It was on one of these days that the first bomb from air-
craft was dropped on the city. It fell, I think, in the Rue
Trocadero on the roadway in front of the Prince of Monaco's
house, killing an old man and severely injuring a little child.
I was within a few hundred yards of it, and naturally made
towards the spot, but the crowd was by that time too dense to
get through, and I went on my way to the American Chan-
cellery, where I had an appointment that morning. Herrick,
who had followed the same road, had been much nearer the
danger point than I had, and while congratulating him on his
safety, I could not help saying that the killing of the American
Ambassador by an act so plainly contravening the rules of
war would have been an event of high importance and great
value to the Allies. He grimly agreed, and showed me the
draft of an extremely caustic cablegram which he had just

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

dictated for dispatch to his Government. Before many-
months were over, air-raids upon open towns had become
such familiar incidents in the new warfare that it is difficult
to recall the emotions which the first of them aroused. If
the Germans had reckoned on a moral effect, they were well
justified. Paris was shocked and incredulous, but it was not
cowed; it was furiously angry. It had seen the aeroplanes
coming over, but had thought them to be scouts, and had
imagined that the threat to drop bombs was a German bluff
which could never be seriously carried out. It was from this
point that talk about the "Huns" began.

The return of Sir Alfred Keogh brought all the resources
of the medical service to bear on the situation in France, and
the splendid system of casualty-clearing stations and general
Hospitals, with the greatest of civilian surgeons reinforcing
the R.A.M.C, was gradually built up in conformity with
trench warfare. But the substitution of a full service of hos-
pital trains for horse-boxes inevitably took some weeks, and
in this interval my wife undertook the supply of one of the
improvised trains with certain necessaries not immediately
obtainable under official regulations. Our house in Sloane
Street was the base of this operation, and one room was
devoted to the large linen baskets which were filled and refilled
and taken out three times a week by a young man of means
at his own expense and under considerable difficulties. He
had not been accepted for military service owing to ill-health,
so he spent the days going backwards and forwards either to
Calais or Dieppe, wherever this train was due.

But the need for this voluntary effort rapidly passed, and
before the end of the year it could be said with certainty that
there was no necessary and no reasonable luxury for the
wounded which was not officially supplied. It is due, I
think, to the R.A.M.C. to say that the expansion of their ser-
vice with civilian co-operation was carried through with a
remarkable absence of friction or jealousy. I never heard
complaints on either side that the one was obstructing or
supplanting the other. Medical etiquette is thought to be a
stubborn thing, and professional military feeling is certainly
not to be trifled with. But the great medical tradition which
makes the interest of the patient the first thing carried both

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

along on the same tide and produced only a generous rivalry
in the service of the wounded.

Ill

Before the year was out, Kitchener had a curious little
tit-for-tat for what he may have supposed to be my presump-
tuous interference in these affairs. I met him one night
towards the middle of November at a small dinner party at
Lord Crewe's house, and the talk strayed on to the question
of the wounded and the sentimental attraction which the
wake of an army seemed to have for large numbers of unquali-
fied women. He told stories of the scenes in Cape Town
during the South African War and of the steps which he had
taken to keep order and to enable him to get on with the war.
Then he looked across the table at me and said, "Just the
same thing is happening in France, and jou have got to go
over there and tell them to go." I thought it was a pleasantry
and turned it aside, but he persisted and said, "No, I mean it
quite seriously." A week later Sir Alfred Keogh, who was
dining at my house, told me that Kitchener had informed him
that I was going on this extraordinary errand. Again I
protested, but he said seriously that Kitchener meant it, and
that I really must fall in. I began to understand what I had
heard of Kitchener's peculiar power of compelling people to
do all sorts of things which they had no intention of doing.
The upshot was that I went to Boulogne at the beginning of
January, bearing a missive which had no official authority
behind it whatever, and depended only on my word that it
was inspired by high authority. This was briefly to the effect
that if any ladies who were without professional qualifications,
and had no duties officially assigned to them, were in Boulogne
after the last day of January, Lord Kitchener would send a
destroyer and take them off.

I delivered this to the head of the Red Cross in Boulogne.
He happened to be ill and in bed when I arrived, and my mes-
sage did not console him. He naturally thought it a very
unconventional communication, and was not pleased at
having put upon him, in addition to his other duties, so delicate

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

and invidious a task as the rounding up of the unqualified
English ladies in Boulogne. He said, I have no doubt with
justice, that some of the technically unqualified were among
the most useful of Red Cross workers. I could do no more
than deliver my message, and he fortunately knew me well
enough to believe my story. My own embarrassment was
increased by the fact that within the next few hours I was
warmly greeted and offered generous hospitality by certain
of the ladies at whom (I felt sure) this communication was
aimed. I was heartily glad to get away from Boulogne
towards the front, where, for a period, the English I met were
of one sex only.

There was no doubt that the thing needed doing. The
accommodation at Boulogne was being filled with people who
had no mission there, at the expense of parents and relatives
of the gravely wounded; there was danger that the scene of
smart society would be shifted to France, and light-hearted
people who seemed only faintly to realize the grim realities
with which they were surrounded were already drawing
invidious comments by their toilets and their entertainments.
There was always the plea that men coming down from the
front and shortly to go back into that hell needed cheering
and entertaining. During the next three years all the capitals
of Europe showed the same violent contrast between the
glitter on top and the agonies beneath; the desire to get the
last thrill out of a life which might be cut short on the morrow
and the permanent background of gloom and grief. The
sounds of revelry by night seem invariably to be mingled with
the noise of guns, and all through the four years one heard
them both together.

Five months later I found myself plunged into the ques-
tions of the Dardanelles wounded. There was the same se-
quence of events — my wife reporting the complaints of the
medical world, letters from anxious parents and friends
pouring in on the editor alleging a serious breakdown, the
permitted publicity useless, unless one broke bounds and
defied the censor. So one morning I betook myself to Keogh,

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and said that, however much I might wish to spare him and
his Department, I should take all risks and speak out in the
W. G. unless he could give me his assurance that everything
possible was being done. He said, "You needn't tell me
anything, it's all true, and I'm in despair about it. Look at
these papers in front of me. That's the file of the Dar-
danelles wounded, and on top of it is a telegram which ought
to be answered this minute. But before it can be answered
it has to go first to the Adjutant-General's Department, then
to the Army Council, after that from them to the Sea Lords,
and from the Sea Lords to the Medical Department of the
Admiralty." "And how long will that take?" I asked.
"Probably about ten days," was the reply. "Very well then,"
I said, "if you will look into that corner for a moment, I will
purloin the file and the telegram and take it straight across
Whitehall to Balfour" (who was then First Lord).

Keogh gasped. Years of official rectitude rose in horror
at the thought. It seemed a monstrous joke. Then simul-
taneously we both seemed to have a vision of something much
more monstrous — the wounded on the beach at Gallipoli
lying there in the sun under shell fire, while plans for their
relief went for ten days round the Whitehall circuit. There
was silence for a moment, and then suddenly he said, "I'll do
it, you shall take it." For the next half hour we sat down to
the file while I made the best precis I could of the chief points
(which concerned the breakdown of the dual control of Army
and Navy) and then I marched with it across Whitehall.
Balfour was not at the Admiralty, but I followed him to
Carlton Gardens, and I shall always remember gratefully
what followed. For a moment he was pardonably astonished
that a journalist should be in possession of a War Office file,
but the briefest explanation sufficed, and he said I had done
perfecdy right. He too, had been in despair at the delays,
and was thankful for any chance of acting promptly. But
having done so much I must now do more. He agreed with
Keogh that the question must be settled, and at once, but
still it was necessary to know the view of three Departments
in the Admiralty, and since I had got up the case, the quickest
way would be for me to go and see the heads of these Depart-
ments and then report to him. Armed with his introductions

THE WAR AND THE WOUNDED

I spent the whole of the next day in the Admiralty, and came
back to him before evening. The decision which needed
to be taken was one of special difficulty for the First Lord of
the Admiralty, but Balfour took it unflinchingly. I have been
told since that the incident was revealed to the Dardanelles
Commission, and that the late Field-Marshal Lord Nicholson
expressed himself in high language about the impropriety
of permitting secret and confidential War Office docu-
ments to pass into the hands of an irresponsible civilian.
Balfour, I was quite sure, would raise no point of official
decorum at such a moment, but I was prepared for an inter-
departmental battle and was gratefully surprised by his cool
impartiality and determination to reach a decision, however
difficult it might be for him personally.

"So you come again with your imperturbable blackmail,"
said a high official to me on one of these days, when I had
gone to him with a suggestion of something wrong, which
with a little official activity might be put right. "What you
really mean, though you are too damend polite to say it, is
that if I don't do what you ask, you will pillory me in your
rag." Yes, I suppose I generally did mean that, and it is, I
think, the perfecdy legitimate attitude of the newspaper
editor.

He has before him alternative ways of getting things
done. He may make a "stunt" which will incidentally boom
his paper and increase its circulation, and finally claim to
have compelled the Government or the Minister to act;
or he may go to the Minister, tell him that he knows certain
things, and will make them public unless action is taken.
One or other of these things he must do, and perhaps both in
the last resort. The choice is, I suppose, a matter of tempera-
ment, and it is not necessarily a virtue to have the tempera-
ment which dislikes "stunts." The "stunt" has always to
be kept in mind as the last resort, and once or twice in my life
I have had cause to regret that I did not adopt it as the first
course. But on the whole, I believe the polite blackmail,
as my friend called it, is the more fruitful method, measured
in results.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

I am permitted to append a letter from Sir Alfred Keogh,
the former Director-General of the Royal Army Medical
Service, who has been good enough to read this chapter : —

Villa Orhoitza, St. Jean de Luz, B.P.
December 9th, 1926.

My Dear Spender, — I have read the chapter in which you set forth
your early experiences in France in 19 14. There is no room for criticism
of what you have so temperately described. You will, however, allow
me to make a few remarks by way of explanation.

When a breakdown of the "Medical arrangements" in a campaign is
notified, it is invariably assumed that this connotes a breakdown of the
Medical branch of the Army. This is by no means true. Far from it.
The Medical branch of the Army is concerned solely, as regards supplies,
with the provision of doctors, nurses, drugs, instruments, and dressings,
in addition to the N.C.O.'s and men of the Royal Army Medical Corps,
of the various medical units.

It is reasonable enough that the public should consider that all those
things which go to the making of the "Medical arrangements" rest with
the Medical Authorities of the Army and it is equally reasonable that,
ignorant of the real state of affairs, blame should be laid at their door
when these fail. For it is assumed that that subsists which should subsist.

The case of the sick and wounded in war and all that portends involves
a whole mass of things other than those for which the Medical branch is
responsible and of which I have spoken. The provision and equipment
of buildings, the supply of tents, sheets, blankets, pillows, bedsteads et
hoc genus omne, all things which minister in so important a degree to the
due care of the casualties in war, belong to branches other than the
Medical.

If, when the Medical arrangements are known to have been inade-
quate to requirements, it can be shown that demands were not made upon
the departments concerned for such important supplies, the Medical
branch may be held responsible. But it should ever be remembered that
the Medical Authorities do not "hold" these as they "hold" dressings,
drugs, etc. ; they are not responsible for the promptness nor the adequacy
of supply.

Herein lies the raison d'etre of the Red Cross Society. But I need not
pursue the subject further. — Yours sincerely, Alfred Keogh.

CHAPTER XXIII

A WAR HOSPITAL

The Tankerton Hospital — In the Military Zone — Belgian Wounded
— A First Line Hospital — Three Hundred Beds — Responsibili-
ties and Difficulties — Some Memories — A Child Patient —
Walter Scott and a Deathbed — The Aftermath — From War to
Peace.

WHEN the war came, the little hospital at Tankerton,
of which something has been said in another chapter,*
found itself in a military zone in which all institutions likely
to be serviceable were at the disposal of the Admiralty. It
had been working for nearly sixteen years, during which,
between two and three thousand men and boys had passed
through it, but that part of its work had now to be wound up.
At the beginning of August, 19 14, my wife was told to evac-
uate the civil patients and hold herself ready to take naval
wounded. None came, and it soon became probable that
none would come. The sea took its toll, but very few naval
wounded came back to hospital. But in a few weeks beds
were urgently needed for Belgian sick and wounded, and in
addition to the hospital a large entertainment room was taken
and converted into a ward for their accommodation. Most
of them were light cases, and the stress of this work was over
by the beginning of 191 5, but by that time the need for beds
for the British Army was constantly increasing, and early in
the year both the old and new buildings were accepted as a
first line hospital by the R.A.M.S., who left my wife in charge
as Commandant, and told her to carry on and increase the
number of beds as quickly as possible.

So gradually the little hospital with its sixteen beds was
expanded by the addition of huts and houses until it had

* Vol. I, pp. 98-99
53

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

finally 300 beds and was the largest private hospital in the
country. Since it was a first line, and not a Voluntary Aid
hospital, operating theatre, X-ray department and full surgical
equipment had to be provided, and the staff enlarged by resi-
dent surgeons and a large number of fully qualified nurses.
Undoubtedly it was a very serious responsibility. During
19 1 7 and 191 8 there were 500 persons to be catered for every
day, and the food-rationing system caused constant emergen-
cies. Several times my wife telephoned to me in London to
say that in a few hours they would be absolutely out of meat,
or some other essential commodity, which sent me rushing to
the Food Controller, who was not always as responsive as I
desired. I remember an official expressing the opinion that
it would do the soldiers no harm if they had to subsist on
farinaceous food for twenty-four hours or so, and my warm
invitation to him to come down and administer that diet to
our 300 patients. My wife made it a rule never to say no to
any demand made on her, but her resources were sometimes
taxed to their limits, as, for instance, when a demand came to
have eighty extra beds ready at twelve hours' notice. It was
done somehow, but looking back on it, I can't think how.
Money was always an anxiety, for the War Office grant left a
large balance to be made up, but many old friends contributed
generously, and Lady Crewe in London organized a matinee
at which the Queen, who had helped much by her kindly
interest, was present.

I spent most Saturday afternoons and Sundays at Tanker-
ton during the four years of the war, and my wife visited me
on one day in the week in London. Air-raids were a constant
anxiety, for nearly all of them passed over or very near the
hospital on their way to London, and were engaged by anti-
aircraft guns, some of which were within half a mile or less.
The perfect discipline with which hospital staffs went on with
their work through the din and racket on these occasions
proved the nerve and courage of women, but the effect on
wounded men was bad, and lying helpless in bed with nerves
on edge with suffering, some of them felt acutely what they
would have taken as an everyday incident in the trenches.
I could never get out of my mind the possibility of a bomb
having fallen in a ward at Tankerton, and at the end of every

A WAR HOSPITAL

raid I rushed to the telephone for reassurance. There was,
at one time, serious thought of evacuating these hospitals on
the coast, but when the proposal was examined, it was seen
at once that the same reasoning would have barred all London
hospitals and a great many others in the south of England.
Since it was totally impossible to replace these with new
accommodation in the sheltered areas, the word went out to
all to carry on. But since Tankerton was on one of the
stretches of coast on which invasion was thought possible, the
Commandant had to be supplied with secret instructions for
evacuation in case of need, and that possibility was one which
could never be quite ignored.

The surgeons were always being snatched away, and often
at moments when the need for them was most urgent, and to
replace them was most difficult. The Medical Committees which
arranged these things were adamant that the younger men
should go to the front, whatever they might be doing at home.
It was a sound enough rule, if the need was greater abroad,
but it very often was not, and then it seemed a mere stupidity.
Thus our principal surgeon, Dr. Witney, who was doing
twelve major operations a week, was suddenly whisked away
to Egypt, and we had the greatest difficulty in finding a
successor to him at short notice. He had very important
work later, but after four months in Egypt he wrote to me that
his most serious case till then had been an inflamed mosquito
bite. Tankerton was saved in this emergency by a most
admirable American surgeon, Dr. Bell, who had come over
early in the war with a determination to play his part, whatever
his countrymen might do. Later, my wife came to rely
largely on Canadian help. Colonel Reason, of London,
Ontario — a man of the highest skill and competence, who
later was commanding officer of the great General Hospital
at Doullens in France — was then one of the principal medical
officers of the Shorncliffe District, to which Tankerton was
attached. He and the officers under him rendered unfailing
help in all emergencies.

The hospital was extremely fortunate in its staff — especially
the Matron, Miss Daisy Elliot, who was rightly awarded high
distinctions. The Church Army also was indefatigable in its
help, and converted its seaside home for girls into a

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

ward for men recovering, thus releasing beds for graver
cases. Then close at hand was Colonel Greg, in charge of
the Cheshire Territorials, who were in training on the coast.
He was always a warm friend and ready helper.

Memories of these times crowd in upon me. I can still
see the long convoys coming down the coast road with their
lights darkened, and the stretcher-bearers unloading the
ambulances by the dim light of their electric torches. I can
see buildings long demolished, and know where one man died
and another fought back to life, and many faces come back
to me. The suffering will not bear thinking of — ghastly
wounds, terrible operations, dressings which it took all one's
courage to witness ; but through it all the happier memory of
patience, cheerfulness and unselfishness is the more abiding.
It is sometimes thought that doctors and nurses in hospitals
grow hardened to pain and death. It is seldom so, according
to my observation, and certainly was not so in this hospital.
The number of deaths, in proportion to the serious cases, was
very small, but every death seemed to be regarded as a defeat
by the staff, and doctors and nurses struggled to the last to avoid
maiming operations. I could only be an occasional witness, but
almost every night I had bulletins of the danger-list from my
wife over the telephone. She knew every man in the hospital
and had the useful knack of remembering all their names.

I am speaking of what was common as the commonplace
only ten years ago, and the thousands who served in war
hospitals have similar memories. Let me record only two of
the many incidents that have lodged in my memory.

A little boy of about five years of age was run over by a car
and seriously injured on the road in front of the hospital.
Since there was no civilian hospital within seven miles, he was
brought in and the surgeons found that an immediate opera-
tion was necessary. Then the questions arose what to do
with him. There was not at that moment a vacant bed in the
whole hospital, and moreover there was this difficulty, that
silence and darkness were essential. We were all discussing

A WAR HOSPITAL

what to do, when Sergeant-Major White, acting orderly,
whose wound was nearly healed, said, "Let him have my bed."
There were objections, but he pressed hard and finally put
the child in his own bed and insisted that he should be
allowed to keep watch — which he did, lying on a mattress
beside him all night. But there were twelve other men in
the ward, and how could there be silence and darkness?
"Leave it to us," was the answer, and for three successive
days and nights there was hardly a light or a word or whisper
in that ward, and all twelve lay in silence and darkness.
As the story got about, other wards earnestly begged to be
allowed to take a spell, but the Sergeant-Ma j or and his ward
absolutely refused to part with their patient, and with great
pride they nursed him back to life, and then finally, when
he was able to move about, showed him to the other
wards. He was a sweet child, and while he lay between life
and death, the war and their own wounds seemed to vanish,
and day and night there was only one question, "Would they
pull him through?"

For six months a frail lad from the north lay dying with
a shot in his spine. There were flickers of hope, but for all
the efforts to pull him back, he went gradually downhill.
I see him now with his fair hair and blue eyes, lying in one
position week after week, so uncomplaining, so anxious lest
he should be giving trouble. His one resource was to read
or be read to, and in these weeks he discovered Walter Scott.
Towards the end, when he had grown too weak to read
himself, the nurses read to him, and on the last day they were
reading "Ivanhoe." His parents had come and were sitting
by his bed, and presently the padre came in and said prayers,
and through it all the lad was gentle and affectionate and
attentive. Then he looked up and said to the nurse, "Please
read on, I do so want to know the end before I go." And
so she went on reading — just about where Athelstane returned
from the grave — and slowly, as she read, he passed into
unconsciousness.

Surely Walter Scott was at that deathbed and told him the
end when he had passed to the other side.

These men came from all classes, and a large number were
of the labouring class. After seeing them for four years in

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

all the stress of this time — in the trenches and in the hospitals,
facing unimaginable pain, dying without a murmur — I have
never been able to listen without anger to those who prate
about "inferior" and "superior" stocks. The "inferior" had
incredible virtues which put many "superiors" to shame.
My wife was told at the beginning that one woman alone,
acting as commandant without a male committee or a mili-
tary officer at hand to appeal to, would find it an impossible
task to keep order among 300 wounded soldiers. She was
specially warned that Australian and Canadian wounded
required a peculiar kind of discipline which only their own
people knew how to apply, and could not be safely taken in
a British private hospital. There were, of course, occasional
difficulties; the Australians who were angels in bed were apt
to get the devil into them for the first day or two after they
got up. But in the whole period there were only three
crime-sheets among the 5,000 men who passed through this
hospital, and there was no trouble which after a very little
did not yield to friendly remonstrance. My wife pleaded all
the time for more and not less liberty for wounded men, and
she obtained it for other hospitals besides her own. Punc-
tuality at meals and closing time was enforced, but the men
were not otherwise kept within bounds. For the most part
they saw to discipline themselves and developed a strong
public opinion against lowering the credit of the hospital or
the "men in blue" in the town.

When the war ended, most of the private hospitals closed
down, but there came a strong appeal from the Medical
Department of the War Office to keep the Tankerton hospital
open and provide 100 beds for the lingering or incurable
cases of which unhappily there were scores of thousands still
in the country. I own I was very doubtful. The strain on
my wife had been very great — for in addition to the Tankerton
hospital she had had serious responsibilities in the convales-
cent camps — and finance was always an anxiety. Claims on
winding up began to flow in, and one at least had to be
resisted, at the cost of long and tiresome litigation. Still,
the need was so evident that the old rule of not saying no
prevailed, and for two and a half years longer the Tankerton
hospital remained open for chronic cases. The only stipulation

A WAR HOSPITAL

was that no case should be labelled "incurable." Many,
of course, were, and there was nothing to be done for them
except ease their last days but the effort to save the apparently
doomed was the driving force in these years, and many all
but miraculous cures relieved what would otherwise have been
the gloom of this work.

At the end of two and a half years the aggregate number of
these patients was sadly declining and the need of private
accommodation had passed. In the meantime the leases of the
necessary buildings had expired, and my wife was holding on
precariously under the Rent Restriction Act, which was of
very doubtful application to hospitals. She found in the
end that she could not renew the lease even of the one house
which had served for the fifteen-bed hospital before the war.
So there was nothing to do but to wind up and depart, leaving
for memory of the War Hospital only the corner of the
churchyard which holds its dead. On winding up we were
left with almost exactly the sum at which the assets of the old
hospital were valued, and there was unanimous agreement
among the subscribers that it should not be divided, but
applied to a new purpose. With it was built the "Hop-
pickers' Hospital," which stands on our meadow at Marden,
in Kent, and is the centre of a chain of medical huts in the
adjoining hop-gardens. There are an in-patient ward with
ten beds, which are always occupied in the picking season,
and an out-patient department through which, and the
adjoining huts, some four thousand patients pass every year.
For four or five weeks a lady doctor and twelve trained nurses
are kept actively at work ministering to the very poor people
who come into our district every autumn. Here, also, there
are serious casualties, and one of the war ambulances of the
old hospital is still busily at work during the autumn weeks in
the lanes and hop-gardens of Kent.

My part in these affairs, though an unfailing interest
and pleasure, has been only the minor and subsidiary one.
Yet I count it to have been of very real value to me, for
through my wife and her work I have been kept in touch
with the concrete human case which the politician, with his
absorption in " isms " and abstractions and the mechanics of
party politics, is apt to lose sight of.

CHAPTER XXIV

KITCHENER AND FISHER

A First Meeting with Kitchener — An Inquiry about Newspapers —
Kitchener in Egypt — An Incident in 191 4 — Friction with
Politicians — Kitchener and Asquith — "Jackie" Fisher and the
Press — The "Picnic at Kiel" — In a Submarine at Portsmouth
— Fisher and Churchill — A Painful Interview — A Last Meeting.

TWO dominating personalities remain linked in my
memory of these times — Kitchener and Fisher. Much
has been written about both of them, but there may still be
room for a few personal impressions.

First Kitchener, who was in some ways the most puzzling
figure of this time. From my boyhood upwards I had heard
him discussed in the household of an uncle who was related
to the Kitchener family, and the unexpected twists in the
career of the then unknown young soldier were a frequent
subject of conversation in this circle. I thus got a mental
image of him long before I saw him, and was always in diffi-
culty about adjusting it to the Kitchener of later years. I
saw him first in June, 1899, and very clearly remember the
occasion. I had bicycled down from London to the Durdans
to spend an hour or two with Lord Rosebery, expecting to
find him alone. Rosebery came out into the hall to meet me
and said, "Kitchener is here, and he'll eat you alive if he knows
who you are." The allusion was to the controversy about
the Mahdi's head, which had been raised by the Westminster
correspondent in the Omdurman campaign, and was still
being debated in the House of Commons. I said I would risk
it, and we passed out on to the lawn where he was sitting.
I was introduced with a chaffing reference to my iniquities.
This entirely missed fire. Kitchener knew nothing about me

KITCHENER AND FISHER

or my paper or my war correspondent, but he presently asked
me certain questions about the London newspapers, and
wanted to know whether the Daily News was a Liberal or
Conservative paper. Alarms for my safety were evidently
unnecessary. No one could have been more affable, or more
entirely absorbed in his own affairs. He talked, so far as I
remember, about one thing, and one thing only, "the coming
South African War," and just brushed me aside when I said
I hoped it was far from certain. It was, in his view, quite
certain, and there was nothing to be done now but to prepare
a plan of campaign. Then he developed his plan, a plan
on the model of his Egyptian campaign, with railways for its
pivots and railways swiftly run out to meet all the emergencies
of warfare. Rosebery objected that the South African
terrain was not quite the same thing as the Egyptian desert,
but he insisted that in all essentials it was, and that in both
alike the railway was the key. It was perfectly clear that he
both hoped and expected to have the conduct of the coming
war. I remember being struck by the extreme frankness of
this talk in the presence of a chance comer whom he was
seeing for the first time. But the notion that Kitchener was
a secretive or silent man was, so far as my experience goes,
always unfounded. He talked copiously, and with the utmost
freedom and frankness. Nor was he by any means the
misogynist that legend represented him to be. My wife
met him for the first time on board the Admiralty yacht
Enchantress at the Coronation Naval Review in 191 1, and
as soon as she was introduced to him, he launched out into
intimate talk about himself and his life, and his ideas of

{politics at home and in India. This talk went on before
unch, during it, and well into the afternoon ; and he seemed,
as she told me at the time, to be a very simple and friendly man.
In later years Kitchener's most cherished ambition was
to be Viceroy of India, and he made no effort to conceal his
disappointment when Morley and the Liberal Government
refused to give him the place. I rather think that, left to
himself, Morley would have given it him, but there were
strong and solid reasons against promoting a Commander-in-
Chief to be Viceroy at that moment, and these were too loudly
expressed to be ignored. Kitchener said that everything was

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

over and that nothing now remained but to purchase a plot
in some convenient cemetery. But he was greatly consoled
by being appointed to Egypt, and during the three years that
he was there, he certainly succeeded in arresting the Nation-
alist movement. As the victor of Omdurman, he brought
great prestige to the position, but he had also a real insight
into the Oriental mind, which enabled him to brush aside
politics and deal with the Egyptians on their own terms.
Like Cromer before him, he had the great gift of creating a
legend about himself, and he made the Egyptians believe that
he was both benevolent and dangerous, as clever as themselves
and a great deal more powerful. The orders he issued were
never questioned, though some of them might be hard to
fulfil. When I was in Egypt as a member of the Milner
Mission, in 1920, the headman of an Egyptian village pointed
out to me a large and festering pond which Kitchener —
always with an eye to sanitation — had ordered to be filled
up. I asked why it had not been done, and the answer was
that it was more than forty feet deep. I asked again, "didn't
they tell Lord Kitchener and suggest something else — deo-
dorize the pond, drain it off?" Oh no, when Lord Kitchener
had given an order, nobody ever argued with him. What
then happened? Why, all the winter the villagers brought
stones and rubbish and threw them into the pond, which was
now only thirty-five feet deep. The work, said my informant,
was very popular, for it was well paid and did no harm to
anyone. Anyhow, Lord Kitchener was a great man, and his
death a sore blow to Egypt.

He would gladly have gone back to Egypt, if he had sur-
vived the war, and was keenly anxious that his place should
not be permanently filled. I do not think he would have
felt any sense of grievance, if the Government had allowed
him to complete the return journey which was so dramatically
stopped on August 3rd, 19 14. About that, many stories
have been told, and without challenging any of them, I may,
perhaps, be allowed to add one of my own. The news that
he was timed to depart on the morning of August 3rd caused
consternation in Fleet Street, which on that point had rightly
interpreted popular opinion. I reached the Westminster
office as usual about half -past eight that morning, and soon

KITCHENER AND FISHER

after ten my telephone bell began to ring. The first call was
from my wife, who happened to be taking a journey to the
coast, and she rang me up to say that she had seen Kitchener
in the act of departing from Victoria Station. One after
another different voices repeated the same tale — that
Kitchener was going, that he must be stopped, and that the
Government must be made to stop him. Whether the thing
was concerted I don't know, but the voices were those of
brother editors (of morning papers) saying in unison that if
by evening it was found that Kitchener was gone, there would
to-morrow be such an uproar against the Government as had
not been known in our time. I was begged to convey this
to the proper quarter at once, and to back it up with the strong-
est remonstrance in the W. G.

I was (and am) convinced that it would have been a sad
blunder to let Kitchener depart at this moment, and I thought
a little pressure might avoid a very undesirable agitation, so
I sat down at once and wrote a letter to McKenna telling him
exactly what had happened, and asked him to pass it on to the
Prime Minister, if he thought fit. This I got sent into the
Cabinet, which by that time was already sitting. What
effect it had, if any, I do not know. Probably it was a super-
fluous communication, for Asquith has since told us that his
mind was already made up to recall Kitchener and make him
Secretary for War. Kitchener, at all events, was on his way
back (as the evening papers announced) before the afternoon
was over.

It was one thing to use Kitchener's services and quite
another to make him Secretary for War, and I doubt very
much whether this appointment would have been made but
for the extraordinary agitation which was then rising against
Haldane. In his very just estimate of Kitchener, Grey has
spoken frankly about the disadvantages of this appointment
from the point of view of the Cabinet. Briefly, it prevented
the Cabinet from getting the military view in the clear-cut
and decisive way in which it ought to have been presented,
and would have been presented if Kitchener had been Chief

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

of the Staff instead of Secretary for War. There was, to all
intents and purposes, no General Staff at the beginning of the
war. The eminent soldiers who had composed the Staff, as
Haldane designed it, went to the front when the war broke
out, and those who remained had no authority apart from
Kitchener. He, in the meantime, endeavoured to fill all the
roles and to be at one and the same time Cabinet Minister,
strategical adviser and general organizer of the campaign.
This confused the boundaries and threw on Kitchener a load
of detail which left him no leisure for thought. Com-
manders in the field looked askance at this doubling of the
parts, and French loudly complained when he appeared in
uniform on the occasion of their famous interview during
the retreat from Mons. Ministers, on the other hand,
complained that they were never certain what exactly the
military view was, for Kitchener held strong opinions about
what civilians ought to be told, and his expositions, though
fluent and picturesque, often seemed misty and inconsistent,
when analysed by the cool civilian intelligence. In his own
view he was always the expert explaining military mysteries
to amateurs ; and in the position which he occupied, there was
no appeal against his judgment.

Friction was inevitable in the circumstances, and it con-
tinued and developed until in the following year the General
Staff was reconstituted and Sir William Robertson made
Chief of it. Had anyone but Asquith been Prime Minister,
Kitchener would almost certainly have resigned before the
year was out. Kitchener's trust in Asquith, and his belief
that in Asquith he had found solid rock amid shifting sands,
was the one thing that kept him going, and nothing could
have been more admirable than the relations of the two men.
Here Asquith's patience and absolute straightforwardness
had their just reward. But Kitchener, sitting in London and
wrestiing with the Cabinet, was in a new world which he did
not understand and which greatly depressed his spirits. He
felt none of the zest of the fighting soldier, and knew far
too much to share the optimism with which uninformed
civilians buoyed themselves up when things went visibly
wrong. I remember a talk with him in December, 19 14,
when he painted the situation in black colours and earnestiy

KITCHENER AND FISHER

impressed on me that cheerfulness ought not to be encouraged.
His parting words were, "Oh, how I wish I could go to bed
to-night and not wake up till it's all over 1"

I saw him only in these vivid glimpses, and never went to
the War Office or sought for any talk with him on the subject
of the war. It seemed to me that his aloofness from the
Press was a valuable part of his public character which ought
to be respected by journalists. But I knew FitzGerald, his
military secretary and confidant, a man greatly beloved and
respected, who afterwards went down with his Chief in the
Hampshire. And now and again, as I was leaving my
office in the afternoon, I got a telephone message from
FitzGerald asking me to call on him at St. James's Palace
on my way home. Nearly always it was the same tale —
some tangle between Kitchener and the politicians in which
the latter seemed to have behaved very incomprehensibly, if
not downright wickedly. Kitchener could not and never
would understand these strange animals, the politicians.
They were inquisitive and meddling, and wanted to know
things which no soldier with any military instinct could be
expected to communicate to twenty-three other people with
whom he was not intimately acquainted.

Having heard something of the other side, I ventured to
give a little advice. Let Kitchener tell the twenty-three
straight out that there were certain things which could not be
communicated even to the Cabinet and still less printed in
Cabinet papers, and I was sure they would accept it. But
what he must not do was to evade and parry their questions,
give them figures and estimates which, though technically
accurate, really concealed the truth, for in that case the Civil
Departments which built up their operations on War Office
assurances must break down and confusion and recrimina-
tion follow. The truth was that Kitchener, while complain-
ing of politicians, was himself too much of a politician. He
prided himself, as soldiers will, not on his bluntness, but on
his skill, and thought of himself as engaging the politicians
on their own terms and being their equal, and even their
superior, in political devices. In this respect there was some
thing Oriental about him, and he often failed to distinguish
between East and West.

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

All this explains why the inside estimate of Kitchener
never in these months rose to the outside estimate of him.
But the outside estimate was, I believe, profoundly right.
Kitchener had qualities which are best judged from a distance,
and they were not the less valuable because attended with
their defects. He was extraordinarily right when other people
were wrong. From the beginning he had the right measure of
the war, and his insistence on "three years" and "three
million men," when most other experts were talking of six
months and the improbability of even a million being engaged,
was of enormous value. He was also right — righter even than
some of the leading French strategists — in his insistence during
the last week of July that the Germans were coming through
Belgium and that the British should not be placed in a position
in which they would inevitably be outflanked. He was right
again, when Lord French was wrong, in the instant measures
that he took to repair the situation after the retreat from Mons
and to bring the British Expeditionary Force into co-operation
with the French. And when it came to recruiting on the large
scale, the Kitchener appeal, the Kitchener estimate of the need,
the belief that what Kitchener said was true had overwhelming
power. To some of us at the time his disregard of the Terri-
torial Army — which was sheer ignorance inspired by ancient
prejudices at the War Office — was exasperating, and I believe
still that if he had made this army the basis of his expansion
he would have saved himself an infinity of trouble and largely
avoided the shortage of men which was so painfully felt in
the following year. But this does not affect the immense
service that he rendered as the rallying point of the national
effort, and it was a service that no one else could have ren-
dered. Let those who speak of the "Kitchener legend"
remember that the creation of such a legend is the surest
proof of genius in personality.

Ill

But of all this past generation of fighting men, Fisher
leaves the vividest impression — "Jackie" Fisher of beloved
memory. He, too, thought himself the most accomplished

KITCHENER AND FISHER

of them all, but he was in reality the simplest and most trans-
parent of men. Unlike Kitchener, he cultivated the Press
unblushingly, from the loftiest and most patriotic of motives.
We were to be instructed in the true blue-water doctrine, in
the greatness and inevitability of the Dreadnought, in the
essential necessity for the British Empire of holding all the
narrows of the seven seas, and sundry other articles in the
ever-expanding creed of the scientific seaman. But he took
such pains with each of us, was so intimate and affectionate,
that we never could resist the notion that we were the chosen
repositories of his special confidence. He gave with both
hands to each in turn, and we rewarded him with such an
advertisement of himself and his ideas as no seaman ever
received from newspapers, and probably none ever will again.

I have a collection of his letters, most of them marked
"Secret," and nearly all voluminous and exuberant. He wrote
to me, he wrote to my wife, and he wrote about everything.
One letter (to my wife) was a high appreciation of a gown in
which she had appeared at Court; another enlarged on the
infallible nature of a certain remedy for a cold (sent by an
Admiralty messenger) ; another was about the lost tribes and
their rediscovery in the British Isles — a subject on which one
never could be quite sure whether he was in earnest or jesting.
His spirits were unquenchable ; when we asked him to dinner,
it was as likely as not that he would come into the room
dancing a hornpipe, and there seemed to be no company in
which he was not absolutely at home. In all this he was
absolutely unaffected and simple, without a trace of pose or
affectation.

My first meeting with him, somewhere about the year
1903, is vividly impressed on my mind. He had never seen
me till that moment, but he plunged at once into an account
of a dinner at which he had met the King in the previous
week. He had said to the King : "We'll have a picnic at
Kiel. We'll just go along and put two British ships one each
side of a German ; and then we'll say to the German, as the
policeman says to the drunk, 'Come along quietly and there'll
be no trouble, but if you don't, then there'll be trouble, and
no mistake about it.' " "And what," I asked, "did the King
say to that ?" Fisher looked at me quizzically for a moment,

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and then burst out laughing. "The King said, 'My God,
Fisher, you must be mad I

Rumours of these conversational exploits went round the
European whispering gallery, and no doubt added to the
wrath in Berlin. But no one who knew Fisher and saw the
tongue in his cheek could have taken him seriously. His talk,
like his writing, was a deliberate extravaganza to illustrate
a serious point. He was full of scripture, as sailors are, and
would remark blandly that the prophets always exaggerated.
I think he really believed that the Dreadnought, which by
a master-stroke made all other types obsolete, would end the
naval competition by making it hopeless for other nations to
pick up the British lead, and was seriously disappointed when
that result did not follow. But after the first disillusionment
he was always genuinely alarmed about the margin of safety,
and if he contemplated war, it was at some perpetually receding
date, when another master-stroke should have placed the
British fleet on an unassailable peak.

Memories crowd back on me of days with him at Kelvin-
stone, his charming little country house in Norfolk, at Osborne
looking at his new scheme of training for naval cadets, and on
board the Admiralty yacht at Portsmouth. On one of the
latter occasions he brought a submarine alongside and invited
us to go down in her if we dared. It was in the early days of
submarines, and this was one of the "C" type, of gallant and
disastrous memory. He stood on the deck of the yacht and
gave us a short lecture on her qualities with this for perora-
tion : "I shouldn't dream of going down in her myself, and
I absolutely forbid Percy Scott (who was standing next to
him) to go. We are far too valuable to the Navy for us to risk
our lives, but if any of you civilian gentiemen like to go, that's
your business, and if you don't come up again, mind I'm not
to be held responsible." There were four of us, and one of
our number remembered that he was going to be married in
a month's time, and said with some show of reason that it
was his absolute duty not to put his fiancee in the painful
position which our host seemed to contemplate. The remain-
ing three — Winston Churchill was one — felt under an absolute
compulsion to risk it, and presently we were fitted into the
box of tricks which was then the interior of a submarine, and

KITCHENER AND FISHER

heard the hatches closed down on us. The absolute silence
and stillness of the undersea world was what most impressed
me, and for half an hour I sat watching a white mouse in
a cage with the assurance that, if it seemed well, I need have
no anxiety about the supply of oxygen — the failure of which
had never occurred to me. When we finally emerged and had
climbed upon deck, the first thing we saw was the yacht's
pinnace with Fisher on board. Ten minutes after we had
submerged he had ordered her out, and since then had been
cruising up and down in a high state of anxiety, for, as he
explained to me, these were tricky waters for submarines,
and it would have been an extremely unpleasant incident for
him if Winston had ended his days on the mud at the bottom
of Portsmouth harbour.

I was with him on another occasion watching some
manoeuvres on the same spot. Suddenly a submarine dived
under a battle-ship, and a horrified exclamation rose up from
the staff that there was not water enough for her to do it.
Fisher was greatly agitated. He swore and he prayed, and
said in the same breath that the young gentleman commanding
the submarine was a glorious lad and that he deserved to be
shot. After three awful minutes we saw the conning-tower
reappear, whereupon Fisher beckoned to a member of the
staff and said to him in a loud voice, "Find out the name of
that officer and see that he is severely reprimanded for that
damned tomfoolery." When the messenger had departed, he
beckoned to another, and said, "When they've done scolding
him, bring the young gentleman to my cabin and tell the
steward to send up a bottle of the best champagne and two
glasses."

I saw him constantly during the agitations about Naval
Estimates which were a perennial trouble with the Liberal
Government. They began with Tweedmouth's Estimates in
1908, reached their climax in the fight over the eight Dread-
noughts the following year, and, after simmering for the next
four years, were bitterly renewed over Churchill's Estimates
in 1 9 14. Really the surprising thing was not that the Esti-
mates mounted up, but that the change to the Dreadnought
type was effected with so little expense to the country. But
Fisher, though unappeasable about his new types, was a real

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

economist in all else. He found a large part of the money
by a ruthless scrapping of the types he thought obsolete, and
was greatly helped in his battles with the politicians by his
manifest efficiency in this respect. Whenever he wanted more
money, the Admiralty rang with his cries of " Sack the lot "
and " Scrap the lot," and everybody said he was a wonderful
economist.

There was one incident connected with the last of those
fights over Estimates which Fisher used to relate as the
supreme instance of the Providence which keeps guard over
the British Empire. In the battle between Churchill and his
opponents in January, 1914, it was decided, as a concession
to the economists, to strike out the usual Naval Manoeuvres and
to substitute for them a less expensive trial mobilization.
Thus, when the critical days of July came, the fleet was con-
centrated and mobilized instead of being scattered, as it almost
certainly would have been, if the ordinary Naval Manoeuvre
programme had been carried out. The enormous advantage
of this has been stressed by every historian of the war, and the
popular interpretation of it in Germany was that we deliber-
ately planned it with knowledge and intention. It was, in
fact, nothing but an accident of the controversy between the
Admiralty and the economists at the beginning of the year.

After the war had broken out I was a frequent visitor to
Fisher's room at the Admiralty, and occasionally he let me
share the thrills of the eternal wireless vigil kept in Whitehall.
For Churchill personally he never had anything but loyal and
friendly words, but the contention between them about the
Dardanelles was painful to watch. "I am sure I am right.
I am sure I am right," he kept repeating, "but he is always
convincing me against my will. I hear him talk and he seems
to make the difficulties vanish, and when he is gone I sit down
and write him a letter and say I agree. Then I go back to
bed and can't sleep, and his talk passes away, and I know I
am right. So I get up and write him another letter and say I
don't agree, and so it goes on." Fisher was not quite the
unsophisticated seaman in the hands of the dialectician that
this narrative might suggest. He had wiles of his own which
on his best days made him the equal of any politician that ever
lived. But Churchill's wiles and his were on different planes and

KITCHENER AND FISHER

Churchill dazed and dazzled him and produced a mental con-
fusion which he was painfully aware of, but unable to clear up.
During these weeks he seemed to me to be breaking under
the strain. He made the mistake of throwing up alternative
plans which were open to all the objections that he was raising
against the Dardanelles scheme, and which were easily riddled
by his own arguments. He had said and written so many
contradictory things that he could not complain if his consent
was claimed. He was, in fact, not a naval strategist, but a
great constructive and engineering sort of man whose work
was done when he had provided the great fleet. As between
him and Churchill things went rapidly downhill from the
beginning of 191 5, until one day he absented himself as a
protest against no one knew quite what. It was a very
critical moment, and there was even some ground for thinking
that the German fleet was coming out. The next day when
he was still absent, I saw the Prime Minister, and he said that
as an old friend of Fisher's, I might go over to his house in
Admiralty Arch, tell him that Churchill was going, that
Balfour was to be First Lord in the New Coalition Govern-
ment, and see what could be done. I went and spent an hour
with him, one of the most painful hours in my life. All his
pent-up bitterness and accumulated grievances against politi-
cians came pouring out, and I knew that my mission was
hopeless. I was to go back and say that nothing would induce
him to return.

He was far too spirited and patriotic to remain long in this
mood, and he quickly picked himself up and offered his ser-
vices in any capacity in which the Government might think
him useful. A Department was provided for him, and in that
he worked cheerfully till the end of the war. But he never
asked me to see him again, and I heard incidentally that he
had resented something I had said in the interview at Admir-
alty Arch. Happily we had one last meeting. Landing
perilously one day on a shelter in the middle of Piccadilly,
I almost fell into his arms, and received at once the old
affectionate greeting. Then amid the traffic we stood talking
for a full quarter of an hour, and I can see now his gay figure
and jovial wave of the hand as he went his way. That was
the last time I saw him, and a few weeks later he was dead.

CHAPTER XXV

1 91 6 AND AFTER

Asquith and his Opponents — 1917 — Visits to France — The
Paaschendaele Offensive and the Reasons for It — A Journalist
in Difficulties — Easterners and Westerners — The Maurice
Debate and Its Consequences — A Talk with Clemenceau —
American Officers in Paris — A "Little Packet" from Morley —
The 191 8 Election — Meeting President Wilson — The State
Banquet — The Peace Conference — The Wee Frees — Life in the
Country — A Busy Retirement.

DURING the war the censorship and the cessation of
ordinary politics drove the newspapers off their normal
work of criticism, but left them with an inordinate power
over the fortunes of individuals. In ordinary times the
attack on men like Haldane and Asquith would have rallied
their parties to their defence; in war, with parties out of action,
it fell on them as individuals left solitary in a world which
was hunting for scapegoats. Asquith never could be got to
see that his peace-time method of silence and magnanimity
and leaving- the-country-to- judge would not avail him in war,
and in spite of many urgings he would neither meet his Press
critics and conciliate them nor reply to them in public.
Everyone in the world, certainly everyone in Fleet Street,
seemed to know what was on foot in the autumn and winter
of 1916, but it was useless to take warnings to Downing
Street. Asquith was still persuaded that all his geese were
swans, and all his colleagues loyal, and that anything which
appeared to suggest the contrary was either a heated imagina-
tion or the malicious gossip of Fleet Street. I lunched at
No. 10 very shortly before the crisis was sprung upon him.
Lloyd George was one of the guests, and on Asquith's side

1916 AND AFTER

there seemed to be not the faintest suspicion of what was
coming, though scarcely anything else at that moment was in
my own mind. It was equally characteristic of him that,
when the blow fell, he had none of the reactions of the inno-
cent-deceived. He took it as philosophically as everything
else and uttered no cry of pain or surprise. But two things,
I think, he did feel deeply, the defection of Labour and
Balfour's adhesion to his opponents. Against both of these
things he had thought himself secure.

The year 191 7 was a deep disappointment. None of
the new energy which we had been led to expect on the depo-
sition of "Wait and See" was visible either at home or in the
field. We had to wait the whole year without seeing anything
good. Owing to the change of plan which held up everything
for the great Nivelle offensive, the Germans were able to
release themselves from the Somme — a feat comparable to
the British evacuation of the Dardanelles eighteen months
earlier — and to establish themselves on the Hindenburg line.
The Nivelle offensive, when it came, was a catastrophe, and
while the French army was recovering it became essential
that the British army should keep the Germans engaged, as
it did mainly by the terrible and seemingly fruitless struggle
at Paaschendaele. In the meantime the submarine menace
seemed to grow every week more formidable. The only
gleam of light was the entry of America into the war, but there
were moments when it seemed doubtful whether the American
army would be able to cross the Atlantic. Black as the situa-
tion looked outwardly, one got no encouragement when
one sought to ascertain the inside view.

This year was, for the journalist, by far the most difficult
of the war. I knew all about the situation in France as it
was after Nivelle's failure, but nothing could be said about
it in the papers. This was inevitable and right, but what
was not inevitable and, as it seemed to me, very wrong and
unjust, was that blame should be thrown upon the British
Commander-in-Chief and his colleagues for the part which
they were compelled to play in holding the Germans engaged,
and that they should be said to be wasting lives by obstinately
battering against impregnable barriers. I went to France in
the autumn and learnt from personal inquiry and observation

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

what the situation was on the French part of the line, then
visited Haig at Cassel, and afterwards saw with my own eyes
what was going forward on the Northern front. One very
uncomfortable afternoon I spent in a gas-mask with gas-
shells coming awkwardly close, and horrible things going on
in the air. Haig had insisted on my being drilled to the gas-
mask before he would let me leave Cassel on this expedition,
and though I thought such caution unnecessary at the time,
I saw the utility of it a few hours later. On my way back
to my night quarters I met a distinguished officer who had
just come from London bringing news that the Prime
Minister had taken one of the steps reported by Winston
Churchill in his "World Crisis" (p. 339), which "obviously
courted the resignation of the Chief of the Imperial Staff."
He asked me for my opinion, and it was given very
emphatically that, whatever mortifications he might have to
submit to, Sir William Robertson should on no account
resign. I said that if Sir William resigned, Sir Douglas
Haig would be left without support, and that he, too, in all
probability, would either have to resign or be dismissed
from his command within the next few weeks. Then the
door would be opened to the denudation of the West front,
which was what we all most feared, but what appeared to be
contemplated as the desirable next move in Whitehall.

Much trouble followed for me and for my military
friends, and finding that my visits to commanding officers
brought them under suspicion of "intriguing with journalists,"
I decided to forgo them in future. But to stand by Haig and
Robertson in their stand for the Western front seemed to me
at that moment an imperative duty, and I was one of a little
band of journalists of both parties who had vowed to act
together for this purpose. Northcliffe, who was originally
one of these, went over to the other camp at the end of
1 917, but Repington, who was then military correspondent
of The Times, very stoutly refused to follow and transferred
his services to the Morning Post, where he continued to
testify to the western faith. What really caused alarm in these
weeks was the rumour that schemes were on foot
for transferring a considerable part of the British army to
the Eastern front for an offensive towards Vienna, such as the

1916 AND AFTER

Prime Minister hinted at in his speech in Paris in December,
or some other scheme favoured by the "Easterners." I could
not conceive how such a plan could be even dreamt of in
the situation as I had seen it in France. There, as one saw,
the numbers of available fighting men were all too few on
both the French and the British lines, and the withdrawal of
any considerable number of them must either have uncovered
the Channel ports or left the Germans free to wheel round
and attack the French before they were ready. It seemed
highly improbable that, with these tempting objectives under
their noses, the Germans would have withdrawn to reinforce
the Austrians on the Eastern front, and quite possible that
they would have irretrievably broken the lines in the West
before our forces had got to the East and were in a position
to operate there.

For these reasons I never could take any serious interest
in the theoretical arguments between Easterners and Western-
ers. Many of the Easterners' schemes were ingenious and
attractive, and on paper it was always easy to contrast their
liveliness and originality with the dull and costly hammering
on the West front. But they all assumed a liberty of choice
which, in fact, did not exist. Rash though a civilian judgment
might be, I thought it incredible that anyone could have seen
the situation in France as I had seen it in 191 7, and yet think
it possible to withdraw troops in any large numbers from the
Western front. It was, of course, true that for these months
we were on the defensive; and this, I was told many times,
was repugnant to the higher strategy, which saw tempting
opportunities for attack in other fields. But what threatened,
if our lines were weakened, was a German offensive in far
superior force at the vital point, and it seemed impossible that
even the higher strategy could favour that. All this, I think,
was abundantly verified in March, 191 8, when the weakness
of the line at one vital point gave the Germans their oppor-
tunity. What would have happened then, if the Easterners
had had their way, is a very unpleasing conjecture.

The bitterness which this East and West controversy en-
gendered was very great, and played a large part in the rising
quarrel between the Coalition and other Liberals. What-
ever its merits, the thing in debate was in no sense political, and

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

I should say that quite as many Conservatives as Liberals
were Westerners. But more and more it took on a political
colour as between Lloyd George and his Liberal critics, and
came finally to a stormy climax in the Maurice debate. It
seemed to me that in publishing his correspondence with the
Chief of the Staff, General Maurice had done a timely and
courageous thing with entirely salutary public consequences,
and that those of us who thought with him were bound to
support him, even though we could not complain of the dis-
ciplinary consequences which he had invited by a calculated
breach of regulations. But the Maurice debate was badly
bungled and, in its results, disastrous to the Independent
Liberals. Those of them who voted in this division were
said to be beyond forgiveness, and the anti-Liberal wrath
was concentrated on them at the December election. In
spite of these consequences, I cannot see how any honourable
body of men who thought the matter important could have
flinched from expressing their views on this occasion.

One pleasant memory comes back to me of the year 191 7.
The Directors of the Westminster discovered that a certain day
was the twenty-first anniversary of my appointment as editor,
and Sir Harry Webb, who was then chairman, gave a dinner
at his house to celebrate the occasion. Asquith came and
said generous things about my behaviour as a journalist
which I shall always remember with gratitude, and among the
other guests were McKenna, Harcourt, Donald Maclean,
Cowdray, Alec Murray, John Gulland, Jack Brunner,
Oswald Partington and Frank Newnes. A silver salver
bearing all their names was afterwards presented to me as a
memento of this occasion. One touch of sadness mingles
with my memory of this kindness, for with us that evening
was Webb's son, a charming and gallant lad, scarcely out
of his teens, who was killed a few weeks later at the front.
Asquith presided again six years later at a public dinner
given to me at the National Liberal Club, after I had resigned
the editorship of the Westminster Gazette.

I was in Paris in the second week of October, and saw
Clemenceau at his house in Rue Franklin. I learnt later that

1916 AND AFTER

I had chanced upon the moment when he was preparing the
grand offensive which brought him into power for the last
stage of the war, and I was conscious of something in the air.
He talked to me for a few minutes, told me to sit where I was
while he talked to someone else who was waiting for him in
another room, then passed out by one door and reappeared a
few minutes later by another, resumed our conversation, then
vanished again and reappeared again. His talk was vehement
and his adjectives unsparing; I have seldom heard so many
kinds of human infirmity so remorselessly characterized in so
short a time. I was not in a very cheerful mood when I came
in, but my spirits sank deeper as I heard his candid opinions
about the individuals in his own and other countries into
whose hands by some mysterious Providence our common
cause had been delivered. But of his own courage and
temper there could be no doubt. The Allies, he kept repeat-
ing, were invincible; they could not even defeat themselves.
There was a nicker of humour in some of his portraits of his
contemporaries which saved them from malice, and he soft-
ened visibly when presently we began to talk of his old friend
Morley. Nothing, he said, perplexed him more than Morley's
attitude. How could he, the friend of France, who had
known her so well and interpreted her so wisely, fail to see
what was at stake ? He bade me take his love to Morley and
say he was sad but not angry.

During the same visit to Paris I went more than once to
the Hotel Crillon, which was now handed over to the Ameri-
cans, and saw and talked to American officers, who were
then arriving in considerable numbers. There had been
some slight apprehension of what their attitude might be
when they arrived on this scene. The stage American who
thinks Europe a "back number" and teaches every man his
own business was in some people's minds. The real Ameri-
cans who now presented themselves were modest and court-
eous gentlemen, who spoke diffidently of their own capaci-
ties, and said frankly that they had had no experience of the
modern kind of warfare, and had come first of all to learn.
They seemed to include in their number an exceptionally high
proportion of able and cultivated men who would have held
their own with the best-trained professionals in any army,

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and, had the war been prolonged, they would probably have
thrown up some commanders of genius. The Americans
suffered, as we did, from a paucity of professional officers and
the necessity of falling back on comparatively untrained men
who had to buy their experience as we bought ours. It
seemed to be a rule on all the fronts that none of the armies
could learn from each other's experience. Each listened
politely to the other, and each in turn committed the same
mistakes. If the American was in this respect like the other
armies, it was certainly not from conceit, but simply because it
shared the generous spirit which led all in turn to think they
could do the impossible in spite of the experience of those
who went before.

I delivered Clemenceau's message in person to Morley,
and it led to a friendly argument as to how a true friend of
France should behave. Let me add a word about Morley in
these years. For a year after 1914 I saw nothing of him. I
wrote to him when he resigned, but he answered briefly that
he was going to take himself out of the world, and in the
meantime : "Hell must blaze." A year later, seeing a report
in the paper that he had been ill, I wrote again, and this time
got a charming and affectionate reply. He said in his
characteristic way that he was "full of remorse'* for the way
he had treated me, and if I would ask him to dinner the fol-
lowing week he would come "with ever so much gladness."
But in the meantime he was doing a thing which he had always
intended to do, and he saw no reason why it should wait
until he had departed. The next post would bring me a little
packet containing something which, if it served no other
purpose, might "do as a paper-weight on my table." The
packet came, and in it were the Seals of the Secretary of State
for India, which, according to custom, he had retained on the
death of King Edward. I need not say that I have not used
them as a paper-weight, or that I value them more than
much fine gold.

In this charming way the broken thread was mended, and
I saw him frequently during the next two years, and up to
within a fortnight of his death, sometimes at Wimbledon,
sometimes at my own house and occasionally in his familiar
corner at the Carlton Restaurant. In 191 9 I planned a

1916 AND AFTER

luncheon at which he was to meet Asquith for the first time
since the beginning of the war, but Lord Knollys asked me
to let him be host, and the little party came off at Claridge's,
with Asquith, Morley, Esher and myself as his guests.

Ill

There is nothing uncommon in statesmen and govern-
ments being toppled over in a long war; the far more singular
event is that any of them should survive. We Independent
Liberals did not like the Coalition Government of 191 6, and
our faith in Lloyd George had been declining in the last
eighteen months of the war, but we should have felt no politi-
cal grievance at his continuing in power or coming back to it
in any normal election. What we did resent was the vin-
dictiveness of the 191 8 Election and the unnecessary and
altogether exceptional means taken to extinguish opposition
and inflate a majority which would have been abundant in
any case. But even this was of small importance compared
with the beating up of passion on the eve of the Peace Con-
ference, for the result was that Lloyd George went to the
Conference loaded with chains of his own making, and that
the country lost the power of putting in the decisive word for
a wise peace which had been its special contribution at the
end of the Napoleonic struggle.

Independent Liberals lived over again in December, 191 8,
all that they had lived through in June, 1900, and there was a
whimsical kind of irony in the fact that the patriotic avenger
on this occasion was the leading pro-Boer on the
previous occasion, and that for remorseless electioneering
he altogether beat his predecessor out of the field.
I went with mingled feelings to the Mansion House
lunch to President Wilson on the day when the results were
announced. Asquith was there as well as Lloyd George, and
a slip of paper was passed along to me from the reporters'
table to say that Asquith had been defeated in East Fife.
Public men are supposed to be proof against the common
emotions, and Asquith showed not the slightest sign of any
inward disturbance, but it seemed to me a peculiar refinement

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

of cruelty that he should be compelled to be just there, at
that moment, in the same company with Lloyd George.

I was honoured with an invitation to the State Banquet
to President Wilson at Buckingham Palace, and it was a
pleasure to witness the orderly splendour of a great cere-
monial occasion. For this occasion the usual list of official
and ex-official persons had been enlarged to include men of
note in science, art and the professions, and there can seldom
have been brought together a more interesting gathering
from all walks in life. The wear was ordinary evening dress,
in deference to the Republican simplicity of the chief guest,
but all the other accessories, including the gold plate from
Windsor, were there. I was struck by the perfect mastery
of the occasion by both King and Queen. The King intro-
duced each of his guests separately to the President, with an
appropriate word about each; his speech at the Banquet
was direct and simple and admirably delivered, striking just
the right note of contrast with the polished fluency of the
President. Wilson spoke for about half an hour without
looking at a note, and never dropped a word or hesitated for
a moment between one sentence and another. The King,
talking afterwards to his guests, commented on the extraor-
dinary accomplishment of this performance. "But then,"
he added modestly, "I am no orator, which is perhaps a good
thing for a constitutional ruler. My cousin, the German
Emperor, was a great orator."

I was introduced to the President afterwards and had ten
minutes' talk with him. I saw in him a certain resemblance
to Joseph Chamberlain; he had the same immobility of face,
the same penetrating quality in his look and voice. He
spoke of the burden which had been laid upon him in the
past years, and his regret that there were so few people with
whom he had been able to have a "real talk." Then he
flattered me by saying that I was one of the English "publi-
cists" whose views he should like to know, and he hoped he
would have another opportunity of "laying his mind alongside
mine." If or when I came to Paris I was to be sure to let
him know. This sounded hopeful, but nothing came of it.
When I submitted my name in Paris a few weeks later, the
President was ill and unable to see anyone.

i9i6 AND AFTER

I paid two visits to Paris during the Peace Conference, and
if there ever was a case in which the broth was spoilt by too
many cooks, it was this. The inordinate number of the
delegations, and the multitude of secretaries, experts, lawyers,
statisticians, typists, interpreters, cartographers, which each
brought with it, made a crowded and tumultuous scene.
Not even a minor official or under-secretary seemed able to
move without trailing a dozen people of both sexes after him.
And then, in addition to these, all the "causes" had gathered
from all over the world, and were holding conferences and
meetings and buttonholing statesmen and journalists at all
hours of the day and night. The journalist who moved
about in this throng was figuratively torn to pieces ; he came
out bruised and shaken, with his head spinning and his pockets
bulging with petitions and memoranda establishing the inde-
feasible claims of everybody to everything. One's first
impression (and one's last) was that the aggregate of conun-
drums dumped down at Paris was altogether beyond the
capacity of the human brain as it functioned at that moment,
and that the nations would be happy if they came out of it
without a new quarrel being superimposed on the former one.

I sat for many hours in a Committee of the League of
Nations Union presided over by Leon Bourgeois, who
brought down to us questions from the Official Committee
which was then framing the Covenant. We were not a
large body, but we were of many nationalities, and the
necessity of translating into three languages made our pro-
ceedings very slow. But the League was the one tangible
thing to lay hold of in this puzzling world, and in their zeal
for the League the moderates made concession to the die-
hards on other parts of the Treaty, which they would not have
dreamt of otherwise. Some of them said openly that a bad
treaty with the League in it was better than a good treaty with
the League out of it. For weeks together the chaos seemed
hopeless, and responsible people talked gloomily of the
Conference breaking up in confusion. In the end the

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

absolute necessity of some kind of settlement seemed to govern
everything. To get something agreed was said to be more
important than whether that something was fair or workable.
When the Treaty finally appeared, many of its authors
explained privately that they objected to large parts of it,
but had acted under a stern compulsion lest a worse thing
should befall. The moderates consoled one with the hope
that the Treaty with the League would be an Ithuriel's spear
healing the wounds that it inflicted; the die-hards scoffed
at the League and said they had consented to it to humour
Wilson. What would have happened in Paris if it had been
known that America would reject the League is beyond
guessing. Everyone in those days took for granted that
Americans would accept what was thought to be their
own plan.

A general impression which one bore away from Paris
was that the statesmen who were left in possession at the end
of the war were the least likely to make a good peace. The
Paris peacemakers spoke the language and thought the
thoughts of war, and fought each other as stubbornly as they
had previously fought the enemy. They found it extra-
ordinarily difficult to make a settlement among themselves,
let alone a settlement with the enemy. Such a collection of
pugnacious men from all quarters of the globe was surely
never assembled in one city as in Paris during these months,
and if the actual fighting men had not been weary of fighting,
the Great War might easily have had a Balkan sequel. It was
actually the fighting men who, after great trouble, finally
imposed upon the politicians the cessation of the blockade
of Germany. One felt that in an intelligently ordered Utopia
all statesmen who claimed to have "won the war" would,
ipso facto, be disqualified from the making of peace.

I saw Botha for the last time during one of these visits
to Paris. I ran into him one morning in that highly congested
thoroughfare, the hall of the Majestic Hotel, where the British
Delegation was lodged, and he took me off to his room and
for an hour told me stories of his campaign in South- West
Africa, and of the abortive Dutch rebellion. They were
wonderful and thrilling stories told with amazing animation.
As I listened I could not help recalling the evening, sixteen

1916 AND AFTER

years earlier, when he had come to our house in London
and told us stories of another South African War.

Unwittingly during these weeks I put a spoke in Lloyd
George's wheel and in a manner which, if I had foreseen it,
I should have least desired. Sisley Huddleston, who then
represented the Westminster in Paris, sent me an interview
with an unnamed "high authority," which clearly indicated
to those who knew how to read such things that the Prime
Minister was feeling his way back from his worse to his
better self. It was a wise and welcome plea for moderation,
and especially for the putting away of foolish and extravagant
ideas about reparations in favour of what was practicable and
politic. It pointed out the difficulties and the interminable
consequences of demanding more than Germany could
perform and inflicting on her wounds which she could not be
expected to forgive or forget. There was nothing in it which
at this distance of time would not be regarded as good sense
and sound policy, and I published it without the smallest
hesitation, well knowing that Huddleston would not have sent
it to me or made any claims to inspiration unless he was sure
of his ground. But no sooner had it appeared than a storm
arose in the House of Commons, and at the instigation of
Northcliffe and Kennedy Jones the signatures of more than
200 M.P.'s were hastily obtained to a minatory telegram, which
was despatched to Lloyd George in Paris. Under this
pressure he returned suddenly to London to face his critics,
who demanded explanations of the "moderation article," as
it was scornfully called. I had greatly hoped that he would
meet them on this ground and boldly repeat in the House of
Commons what Sisley Huddleston had written. In this I
was disappointed. He did not disown the views expressed in
the article, but he turned upon Northcliffe and trounced him
in a hurricane speech which changed the entire issue and car-
ried him through amid ringing cheers. It was an astonishing
piece of Parliamentary wizardry, but, from the point of view
of the Treaty, a bad day's work. Huddleston had only done
his duty, and he was perfectly right, in my judgment, in
attaching high importance to what had been told him, but
I was left with the reflection that if the article had done good,
the telegram had more than undone it. It was in the highest

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

degree undesirable that the Prime Minister should be exposed
to this browbeating, or that there should have been such a
demonstration of British die-hardism at that moment, and
the result was seen in the subsequent hardening at Paris.
The 'Encyclopedia Britannica, I see, puts it on record that this
manifestation "diminished Lloyd George's authority and
weakened his resistance to the military policy of France."
To be just, one must add that he had already weakened his
own hand by his electioneering in the previous December,
but undoubtedly this incident made it more difficult for him
to find a way out of that entanglement.

Both Huddleston and I were left in a position of some
embarrassment. The circumstances forbade explanations,
and we had to submit to the suggestion that we had either
been hoaxed or were romancing — a suggestion that was
entirely removed in 1922, when it was shown by Signor
Nitti that the views expressed in the article corresponded
with those expressed in a document circulated by Lloyd
George to the members of the Peace Conference at the time.
Huddleston's conduct was irreproachable from first to last,
but, not for the first time, I felt the difficulty in which a news-
paper is placed when it puts out "feelers" for a policy (or a
change of policy) which is still in doubt. The "feeler" may
bring all the forces of reaction suddenly into play, and if
the policy is not followed up, the newspaper is left in the air
with its reputation damaged.

In the years that followed the peace, the little band of
Independent Liberals, or "Wee Frees," as they were now
called, did what seemed to me some of the best work done by
a Parliamentary group in my lifetime, and I worked hand
in glove with them at the Westminster. It was a special
pleasure to be able to do a little to help my old friend Donald
Maclean, who led the party for a time in Asquith's absence,
and showed remarkable capacity and courage in a very
difficult situation. Maclean had been closely associated with
the Westminster from 1908 onwards, and during the

1916 AND AFTER

subsequent years scarcely a week had passed in which I had
not spent two or three hours in talk with him. An editor
can have no more valuable help than this constant touch with
a leading unofficial member of Parliament, and Maclean in the
previous years had kept me informed about the currents of
opinion in the House, the movements coming up from the
back benches, the new stars appearing on the horizon, and
many other things which the editor whose contact is mainly
with officials and party leaders is apt to miss. If the West-
minster had been acceptable to the rank and file in Parliament,
it was largely to Maclean that the credit belonged.

There is nothing to disclose about these times which is not
generally known. The little party kept to itself, was faithful
in attendance and did a large part of the work of a normal
Opposition. It forgathered once a week at lunch while
Parliament was sitting, to hear someone speak on a subject
of importance, and more than once I was invited to address
it. It was veritably a band of brothers, and it had only the
one thought of keeping Liberalism alive in these evil times,
and resisting the tendencies which would have merged it in
something not itself. The Irish question played a large part
in its activities, and it maintained a stubborn protest against
the "black and tan" methods of the Government. I wrote a
great many articles on this subject in the Westminster, not in
the least palliating the guilt of the Irish assassins — indeed my
denunciations of their crimes brought me a series of threat-
ening letters from the Irish camp — but stoutly maintaining
that a Government which adopted their methods demoralized
law and justice and fell to their level.

I shall return to the story of the Westminster Gazette in
another chapter. It is sufficient to say here that from 1923
onwards my regular London life was over. I was now
released from daily attendance at a newspaper office and free
to live mainly in the country — which for long had been our
dream. We had taken a house at Cobham, in Kent, in the
last year of the war, and for two years I had come up daily
for half the year, catching a train at 7 o'clock in the morning.
Soon after I had resigned the editorship of the Westminster
we gave up our London house and came to live where we
are now living, in the Weald of Kent. These years have not

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

been inactive. In addition to three or four newspaper
articles a week I have written the Life of Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman and two other books. Cable and telephone
make many things possible. For a year or more I wrote a
weekly article on European affairs for the Neiv York Evening
Post, and, though it was written in a Kent village, I do not
think it ever failed to appear punctually the next day. Then
there have been opportunities for the long travel of which
something will be said in another chapter. London is still
within easy reach, but after years of Fleet Street it is pleasant
to look up from one's desk and see the missel-thrushes at
work on their nests in the lime trees by the lawn.

The life of Campbell-Bannerman was not all plain sailing.
The choice of biographer lay with Pentland, C. B.'s literary
executor — whose too early death was a great grief to his
friends — and I am afraid he had much trouble about it.
Morley strongly objected to my being chosen, and said frankly
to me that he had done so. He thought that I should be
unsympathetic and that I should not tell the story of the South
African War as he thought it ought to be told. Several
times he inquired how I was getting on, said he was anxiously
waiting for the result, and expressed the hope that as his time
was short I would not be too long in finishing the book.
Unhappily he died while it was going through the press, but
Massingham, who had shared his uneasiness, partly consoled
me by professing himself completely satisfied.

For part of this time I have been "in politics" in a manner
which was new to me and outside my previous experience.
For while I was in India in 1926, there came a cable from
the Executive Committee of the National Liberal Federation
asking me to accept their unanimous nomination as President
of that body. It was the highest and kindest compliment
they could have paid to a man in my position, one who was
in no sense a public man, who had taken no part in the organi-
zation of the Party and had never been in Parliament. It was
entirely unexpected and gave me very real pleasure, the
memory of which survives all the difficulties which attended
my year of office. But here I touch an unfinished story,
which belongs to the journalism of the day rather than to the
narrative of things past.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE MILNER MISSION

Appointment and Postponement — An Unorthodox Arrival — An
Impenetrable Thicket — Breaking Through — A Proclamation —
The "Non-Official" Member and His Part— A Touch of Melo-
drama— Trouble at Tantah — A Journey to Upper Egypt — An
Odd Exit — The Negotiation in London — The Report and Its
Fate.

THE previous chapters have been more or less a con-
secutive narrative, but I have left for separate treatment
certain episodes which stand by themselves, and I will take
first the Milner Mission to Egypt of which I was a member.

One day in May, 1919, Curzon, who was then Foreign
Secretary, asked me to come and see him at his house, and
said he wished me to be one of a Mission of six which the
Government proposed to send out to Egypt in the early
autumn. He said I was his choice, and that he had chosen
me specially to represent Liberal opinion on a body which
would otherwise be mainly official or ex-official. Milner
was to be President and had authorized him to convey to me
a strong expression of his wish that I should go. He said
genially that with Milner, Rodd and myself as three out of
the six, and himself appointing us, it would probably be
called a "Balliol conspiracy," but he was willing to risk that.

I saw great difficulties; politics, both home and foreign,
were very critical, and it seemed to me improbable that my
employers at the Westminster would be willing to spare me
for the four months which was mentioned as the minimum
time. I asked for a week to consider it, and went first to
consult Asquith, who said without a moment's hesitation
that I must go, and that no obstacle should be allowed to

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

stand in the way. This was also the opinion of the West-
minster directors, who very handsomely volunteered to allow
me my salary during the whole time of my absence. At
the end of the week I accepted, and shortly afterwards the
decision to send the Mission, and the names of its members,
were publicly announced. Then for nearly four months I
heard nothing more about it. About the middle of Septem-
ber I happened to meet a member of the Government, who
volunteered to me that the Government were in much
doubt about sending the Mission. Egypt was highly dis-
turbed; there was the possibility of awkward incidents; to
get us into Egypt safely and to prevent accidents while we
were there might be no easy matter. What did I think?

I said that, awkward as things might be, it seemed to me
still more awkward to withdraw the Mission, after it had
been publicly announced, in face of the agitation in Egypt,
and that though I was not authorized to speak for my col-
leagues I felt sure that none of them would wish that reason
to be alleged. My own strong opinion was that we ought
to have been in Egypt by now, and that we had better be
despatched as quickly as possible. Six weeks passed before
I heard anything more, and then one day early in November
I received a warning to be ready within a week. We sailed
from Marseilles in the " Malta," a small and ancient P. & O.,
on November 28th, and visited the Island of Malta and lunched
with the Governor on our way. My wife went with me, and
until Lady Rodd and Lady Maxwell arrived some weeks later,
she was the only lady with the Mission. The woman's side
of it was by no means unimportant, and she made friends with
many Egyptian ladies, some of whom are still among her
regular correspondents.

I suppose our arrival and safe conduct were a matter of
some anxiety to the authorities. At all events they took
every precaution. We were landed in a tender which took
us straight to a heavily guarded train, and aeroplanes circled
about us all the way from Port Said to Cairo. When we
arrived at Cairo, the troops were out in the main streets,
and their presence drew the Egyptian crowds to these, while
we were whizzed off in old and very fast army cars by side
streets to the Semiramis Hotel. My wife lost her hat on the

THE MILNER MISSION

way, and the car a part of its bonnet, but the driver had instruc-
tions to stop for nothing, and we arrived breathless and
dishevelled.

It was not exactiy a State entry, and at first we did not
seem to be welcome guests to either British or Egyptians.
The High Commissioner, Lord Allenby, gave us a banquet
at the Residency and introduced us to the Egyptian Ministers,
but after that went off to the Sudan and we saw him no more
until just before our return. The Egyptian Ministers were
a gallant body of men, who had braved much obloquy and
no slight personal danger, in order to make a Government,
while we were doing our work, but they could give us very
little help, and had all they could do to hold their offices and
dodge the bombs that were being thrown at them. With
the departure of Lord Allenby we seemed to be completely
isolated, and were rigorously boycotted by all but a small
minority of Egyptians. Sentries tramped all night in front
of the hotel in which we were lodged, all the back windows
were boarded up, lest we should be sniped from the streets ;
detectives were assigned to us, and we were warned never
to walk about unless attended by them. This we decided
was beyond endurance, and having assured the police that
they would not be held responsible, we went about as we
chose.

For a fortnight we did nothing, and seemed to be sur-
rounded by an impenetrable thicket. The Egyptian news-
papers declared with one accord that we had come to rivet
their chains on the Egyptian people, to extinguish their
nationality, to place them permanently under the Protectorate
and martial law, and exhorted all patriotic Egyptians to give
us a wide berth. The few Egyptians whom we saw told us
quite firmly that there was nothing whatever to be done, if
we felt compelled to hold to the "Protectorate." No one
knew what it meant (and we ourselves were very uncertain),
but whatever it meant, it was damned beyond redemption,
and attempts to define it or explain it would merely make
bad worse. This raised a very serious question. Our terms
of reference required us "to report on the existing situation
in the country and the form of Constitution which, under the
Protectorate, will be best calculated to promote its peace and

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

prosperity, the progressive development of self-governing
institutions, and the protection of foreign interests." A
strict interpretation of this would, I suppose, have justified
us in reporting that there was no constitution which, under
the Protectorate, would have had the desired results, and leaving
it at that or seeking fresh instructions. An ordinary Com-
mission would, perhaps, have felt obliged to take this course,
but we were not quite an ordinary Commission. Our
Chairman was a Cabinet Minister in touch with the Govern-
ment; we had been sent out to find the solution of a difficult
and urgent political problem, and our return with a mere
negative would have been taken to mean that there was no
alternative to a policy of repression.

We were all of us — Milner most of all — determined not
to be driven to this conclusion until all possible alternatives
had been explored. But while we sat marooned in the Hotel
Semiramis, intelligent research into any aspect of the Egyptian
problem was extremely difficult. At the end of a fortnight
I suggested to Milner that we should issue a little proclama-
tion disclaiming the interpretation which had been placed
upon our Mission, laying stress on its positive side, and invit-
ing all expressions of opinion. At the same time we debated
among ourselves and came to the conclusion that the best
thing we could do was to clear our own minds as to the
essential British and foreign interests in Egypt, and having
done so, see how far the demand for Egyptian self-government
could be adjusted to them. I wrote a little memorandum on
this subject, and gave it to Milner, who expressed his general
agreement, and said his own thoughts were moving in the
same direction. Our proclamation was issued on December
27th, and though it had no effect in breaking the official boy-
cott, it undoubtedly had great effect in encouraging the
friendlies and moderates to engage in private and intimate
conversation with us.

The subsequent developments are told in full in the
Report of the Mission, which traces the stages through which
we passed to our final conclusion. In after years I have seen
articles in Conservative papers making me the villain of the
piece and alleging that I exerted some influence upon my
colleagues which caused them to turn their backs, for this

THE MILNER MISSION

occasion only, on their lifelong devotion to the Empire.
I do not wish to disclaim any responsibility, but this is an
absurdity which is not worth arguing about. We all travelled
the same road by the same steps, and I cannot remember any
occasion on which we seriously differed. If we had seriously
differed, I doubt if any of us would have succeeded in
moving Milner from any position to which he was firmly
anchored. I cannot profess to speak for him, but from my
many talks with him I should say that two considerations
chiefly weighed with him. First, he had very clearly in his
mind the seriousness of the alternative, if we failed to make a
settlement with Egypt; and next, being an old Egyptian
official and a lifelong student of Egyptian affairs, he did not
share the vulgar opinion that Egypt was part of the British
Empire, but held, on the contrary that the restoration of her
independence, subject to certain essential safeguards, was the
logical and natural development of the occupation and our
own pledges in regard to it. His view was that if the
Egyptians did not want us to govern them and could keep
order and maintain solvency without us, we were under no
obligation to undertake the invidious, difficult and very
expensive task of governing them against their will. I may
add here that the Mission took very special pains to obtain
a careful estimate of the steps which would have to be
taken, if a settlement could not be obtained.

Though on these main lines we all kept step together, it
is true that my own part was in one respect a little different
from that of my colleagues. Early in the day Egyptian
Nationalists who were anxious to build a bridge singled me
out as the one member of the Mission who was neither an
official nor a soldier, and who in ordinary politics was known
to be a Radical and an opponent of the Government. It was
therefore assumed that communications could be held with
me without technical departure from the boycott. This was
a useful idea, and it was actively fostered by Osmond Walrond,
an old friend both of Milner's and mine, who knew everybody
in Cairo and was indefatigable in the cause of the Mission.
Walrond, perhaps, painted me a little redder than I am, but
he contrived to arrange for me a series of interviews with
prominent Nationalists, who would never have come near the

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Hotel Semiramis. Some of these interviews were conducted
with extraordinary precautions which lent a pleasant spice of
adventure to the proceedings. I went after dark in closed
cars to houses I never could find again in daylight, and held
whispered conversations in rooms of which the doors were
carefully locked before a word was spoken. Or I went to
a shop in the Bazaar, pretended to buy things which I didn't
want, until on an agreed word being spoken I was taken into
an inner room and found it full of ardent politicians. I look
back on it all with a pleasant sense of melodrama, but I think
it really helped to break the ice which till then had frozen us
in. The general impression I took away was that beneath
the hostile surface there was a real desire to come to terms
and find a way out of an impossible situation. Word went
to Zaghlul, who remained stubbornly in Paris, that we were
not as black as we were painted, and not a few of his party
established useful relations with the Mission behind the scenes.
All this paved the way for the negotiations which took place
in the following year in London.

Another duty which Milner assigned to me was to travel
in the Provinces and investigate the causes of the March rebel-
lion. A visit which, accompanied by Ingram, one of our
secretaries, I paid to Tantah, ended in serious trouble not for
us, but for the British authorities and a considerable number
of Egyptians. It happened in this way. After I had spent
many laborious hours searching files and criminal records,
the Governor of the Province said he would like to show me
the town. He thereupon put me into a car and, with one
car full of police preceding and another following, paraded
me about the streets and in front of the principal mosque for
an hour or more, landing me finally at the official Rest House,
where I was to have lunch. Two hours later he rushed into
the Rest House in a very agitated condition and exclaimed
breathlessly, "They have discovered who you are." I
replied that since he himself had taken special pains to adver
tise my presence, this did not at all surprise me. But he was

THE MILNER MISSION

past argument, and could only repeat that the students were
pouring down from the mosque, and that the whole
town was at their heels and rushing towards the station,
from which they imagined that I was going to depart that
afternoon.

This was not at all my plan. I had several appointments
that afternoon and the next morning, and had arranged to
leave by road the following day. So I explained to the Mudir
that it really didn't matter if they chose to demonstrate at the
station, provided I wasn't there ; to which he replied that there
was no knowing what they would do next, and kept repeating
that he would be held responsible if any harm came to me.
He implored me to cancel my engagements, to remain where
I was till dark, and then to go by dark in a car which he would
provide. This seemed to me ignominious, but, knowing
that the brunt of the affair would fall on him and not upon
me, I put it to the British Inspector, who was staying in the
Rest House, and he was strongly of opinion that I should
not be driven off the ground by the mob. I therefore
decided to keep to my original plan, and depart as arranged
on the morrow. One little complication was that I had
somehow to get across the town to the house of the official
with whom I was staying, and the main streets were in the
hands of the mob. There was a lull after dinner, and it was
decided that the safest course was for me to go alone with an
Egyptian boy to guide me. He was a splendid boy, and took
me with the utmost coolness through side streets and narrow
lanes which were all but deserted. But to be in an Eastern
town by night with a fanatical mob after one is not the kind
of adventure one would choose, and the sound of that mob,
as I threaded my way through the lanes of Tantah, is still a
rather haunting memory.

The lull continued the next morning, and I did my business
unmolested and departed at the hour fixed in the original
programme. But that unfortunately was not the end. A
few hours after I had gone the rioting broke out again, and
continued almost without interruption for the next fortnight.
Troops had to be called in to assist the police; some lives
were lost and there were many casualties. The attack
was now concentrated upon Egyptians who had been

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

civil to me, and any others who were suspected of
being weak-kneed Nationalists and friends of the British.
This last aspect of it set me thinking. I had then only
begun my journeys, and had a tour mapped out for me in
Upper Egypt. It was very important that information should
be got at first hand, but it did not seem fair that Egyptians
who were willing to give it should be exposed to these
reprisals. It was suggested to me that if I went as a private
individual and not as member of the Mission this would be
avoided. This I decided to do, and an Englishman fluent
in Arabic, who was in business in Alexandria (Mr. W. Goldie),
volunteered to go with me, and proved a most delightful
and useful companion. I could have done nothing without
him, but all doors seemed to open at his knock, and he took
me to the houses of village headmen and governors of
provinces (Omdehs and Mudirs), who talked freely, with my
friend interpreting when necessary. Faces were saved by the
fiction that I was travelling on business, and in the following
week sundry paragraphs appeared in the Arabic newspapers : —

The Omdeh of X learns with consternation that the English gentle-
man whom he entertained at his house last week was a member of the
Milner Mission. Had he been aware of the identity of this gentleman it is
needless to say that he would never have permitted him to darken his
doors.

This satisfied everybody, including myself. I had seen and
talked to them, they were safe from reprisals, and, so far as
I could judge, no one was deceived. In Egypt, as elsewhere,
the game of politics is played according to rules, and so long
as these are observed, the Egyptians thoroughly enjoy
playing it.

So, starting from Luxor, I worked north, visiting Minieh,
Beni-Suef, Assiut, and many small towns and villages round
about them, and getting finally into the Fayum, which is a
charming and most un-Egyptian-like oasis of olive and
vine-clad hills and valleys with the beautiful lake of Moeris
on its far side. All these places were supposed to
be hotbeds of sedition, and I was told many stories
of the March rebellion, and listened to the complaints of
fellahin who had served with the Labour battalions in the
Palestine expedition. These, it turned out, were complaints

THE MILNER MISSION

mainly against Egyptian officials and not against us. On
the whole, the service seemed to have been popular and lucra-
tive, and little was made of what was thought to have been
the chief grievance, viz. that the fellahin had in fact been con-
scripted though the recruiting was supposed to be voluntary.

A party of young Egyptians was sent from Cairo to Luxor
to watch my movements and see that the boycott was main-
tained against me by Egyptians in the provinces. I threw
them off at the beginning by the device of booking a sleep-
ing berth to Cairo, and slipping off the train in the middle of
the night and leaving them to go on. For the next ten days
I was free of them, and more important still, the Egyptians
whom I visited escaped their espionage. I was aware
towards the end that they were on my tracks, and two of them
invaded my compartment in the corridor train in the last
stage of the journey back to Cairo. My companion put his
back to the door and we kept them prisoners, until we saw
our way clear out of Cairo Station. These young men were
very pertinacious. One of them followed my wife all the
way to Assouan, where she went while I was on this business,
and endeavoured to cross-examine her as to my whereabouts
and that of other members of the Mission.

There was a dark and violent side to the movement which
it was impossible to ignore, and which was brought home to
us by the frequent attempts to assassinate members of the
friendly Ministry. We never could clearly ascertain what the
relations of the official Nationalist party were to the plotters
of these crimes, but I imagine them to have been very much
what the relations of the Parnellites were to the Fenians in
the old days of the Irish movement. That is to say, the two
organizations were separate and the Constitutional Nation-
alists could honestly disown complicity with the party of
violence, but they were not willing to denounce it or to help
the police in tracking down its members. That there were
comings and goings between the two groups and that mem-
bers of the one passed over to the other is highly probable,
and fanatical impulses affecting them both had always to be
reckoned with. When the "murder gang" was on the war-
path, it committed cruelties and atrocities not only against
Englishmen, but also against Egyptians who had incurred

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

their displeasure. But there was also an element of panto-
mime which contributed greatly to the popularity of Egyptian
politics. Egyptian lads loved to play the conspirator's game
and were too simple to conceal their pleasure in it. It was
huge fun for the school-children to come out "on strike" and
be given a week's holiday to parade the streets of Cairo shouting
"Up with Zaghlul" and "Down with Milner." And what
better joke for the girls than the mock serenades with which
the young women of Cairo entertained us after dark from
boats on the Nile? The Egyptian Nationalist movement
could have given points to any American campaign-man-
ager in the number and ingenuity of its devices for attracting
children of all ages. I was invited (under cover of the dark-
ness and with every conspiratorial precaution) to have a talk
with a party of young Egyptians on a dahabeah. They told
me all about it with the utmost good humour, and I came
away with a strong impression that they would be extremely
dull if ever the Egyptian question were settled.

Ill

The work in the last few weeks was very laborious.
Hurst relieved us of the very difficult and responsible work of
inquiring into the legal machinery, but was invaluable in
counsel on all subjects. Maxwell, whose knowledge of Egypt
and friendly relations with Egyptians of all parties had been
of the utmost value, went off with Owen Thomas, who was
our agricultural expert, to the Sudan. Rodd and I remained
in Cairo and spent long days investigating the working of the
Departments and preparing reports, which mostly remained
unpublished. Rodd wrote like a professional, and having
spent some years in the Egyptian Service at the beginning of
his career, he was, like Milner, on familiar ground and carried
with him a standard of comparison between the earlier methods
and the later, whereas everything was new to me. It was a
rare pleasure to work with him; his mind was so fair and open
and so wisely critical. In spite of the hard work and occa-
sional anxieties I look back on these months as among the
happiest in my life. The work was fascinating, we were the

THE MILNER MISSION

best of friends among ourselves, British officials were always
kind and hospitable, and if they felt that we were sitting over
them as inquisitors, they did not show it. In spite of every-
thing, we made many Egyptian friends and, though it seethed
with politics, we were from the beginning atvhome in the
Mohamed Ali Club, and received there nothing but kindness
and courtesy.

No one was more helpful to us than Adly Pasha,
afterwards Prime Minister. I never can help thinking of
Adly as the Egyptian Balfour. He has the same touch of
languor and scepticism and the same knack of rebuking fuss
and verbosity as one remembers in the English statesman.
He was perfectly cool and nonchalant through all the tumult;
he walked in and out of our hotel and gave us at any moment
the information and advice that we stood in need of. All
this he did without ever abating or concealing his own
Nationalist opinions. And then there was the ever-cheerful
Ziwar, most courageous of men, chaffing gaily at the inep-
titude of bomb-throwers who had chosen the smallest of his
colleagues for one of their (happily unsuccessful) attempts,
when the more spacious target of his own portly frame was
available. Many others I recall : Sarwat, Mohamed Said, Maz-
lum, Mohamed Mahmoud; Hichmet, who gave us Lucullan
feasts ; Gallini, always at hand to render friendly personal advice ;
Hassanein Bey, adventurous traveller and archaeologist, not
long from Balliol, whose company was always a pleasure. He
was by no means the only Oxonian in Egypt. A very rich
Pasha invited me to his house one day and presently said he
would like to introduce his son, who was "at Oxford Univer-
sity.,, The son came in, a strapping fellow, who stood
between us while the father enlarged upon his virtues. "To
show you," he said finally, "how zealous and industrious he
is, he actually cabled to me last year for £400 for a special
tutor to help him to pass an examination called 'Smalls.'
Never did I send money with greater satisfaction." The
young man looked at me with apprehension, but I had the
proper sense of what one Oxford man owes to another and
did no more than slightly incline the lid of my left eye.

On almost my last day in Cairo I took an expedition with
my wife to the Sakkara Desert, and, while exploring the

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Serapeum, walked over a parapet in the dark and fell headlong
into the tomb of a sacred bull. I landed flat on my back on
the stone floor and thought for a moment that I had broken
my spine. What I had actually done, though it was uncertain
at the time, was to break two ribs, but the enormous relief of
discovering that my spine was uninjured — since I could move
my legs — made any other injury seem trivial. Nevertheless,
I presented an awkward problem for my companions, for I
could not walk more than a few steps and had somehow to
be got out of the tomb and then transported on a donkey
over six miles of rough desert. I am sure my wife suffered
much more over the business than I did, but a donkey is
certainly not a good form of ambulance for a man with
broken bones in his back, and to complicate matters, we were
no sooner in the open than a deluge of tropical rain came down
and drenched us all to the skin. We thought that at least
we might have been spared this very unusual aberration from
the normal climate of the desert.

I was taken back to Cairo by river in a Government launch
for which my friends had telegraphed. We had great diffi-
culties in landing, since the landing stage was occupied by
gunboats over which we had to pass, but the bluejackets
were helpful, as always, and carried me ashore. Most of the
Mission had departed, the hotel was all but deserted, and
there was difficulty in getting even hot water. The doctor,
when found, would not commit himself, and said there must
be an X-ray examination. The next day was the Mohamedan
Sunday, and the electric current at the Cairo Hospital was so
feeble that nothing was obtained but an enlarged photograph
of my heart. My wife decided on a prompt move to the excel-
lent hospital at Alexandria, where I was taken in an ambulance
carriage attached to the night train from Cairo. There the
injuries were discovered and two days later I was carried on
board the " Sphinx " tightly strapped up for the return journey.
The bones mended easily enough, but an injury to a muscle
in the back was more stubborn, and still makes me liable to
be thrown out of action by a quick turn at tennis.

It was an odd exit, and the superstitious drew the moral
that the ghost of the Sacred Bull had chosen this way of
showing its resentment of the Milner Mission. But the

THE MILNER MISSION

Mission was not ended with our departure from Egypt.
A few months later the contact with Zaghlul which we had
failed to establish in Cairo was brought about in London,
and he came from Paris with a delegation to debate the basis
of a settlement. The sequel is told in full in the Milner
Report, and I need not enlarge on it here. It was a good-
humoured but very tedious process, in which Milner showed
remarkable patience and tenacity. Day after day we went over
the same ground in the big room at the Colonial Office, and
a new point seemed always to be raised just when we thought
we saw daylight. Perhaps it was as well that our proceed-
ings were in French, for the flash-point is less easily reached
in a foreign language, and temper becomes subdued in the
effort of translating.

The publication of the Report was, of course, a decisive
event which changed the direction of British policy, but most
of these efforts seemed wasted in the confusion of the next
two years. When the Report was finished, Milner seemed
tired and exhausted, and after he had retired from the Govern-
ment, it was left without a champion. I was told in later
years that it came as a complete surprise to the Cabinet, which
had known nothing of our proceedings or of the steps which
had brought us to our conclusion. These seemed revolu-
tionary to Ministers who had not considered the alternatives
or refreshed their memory about the history of the British
Occupation. I had little touch with the Coalition Govern-
ment in those days, and though I saw the Prime Minister at
his invitation, I failed to impress him. A few months later
Adly Pasha and Rushdi Pasha came to London to try a per-
sonal negotiation of their own, and both Maxwell and I did
our utmost to procure them a hearing, but without much
success. Curzon was very hostile; there were endless delays,
Rushdi fell seriously ill, and Adly finally departed with
nothing accomplished. By ill luck the Egyptian question
had collided with the Irish, and the Coalition Government
was, I imagine, in no mind to couple its Irish settlement
with what its Tory supporters would have called a surrender
to Egyptian Nationalists. Another five months passed,
during which the situation continued to boil up, and then
Allenby, backed by his officials in Egypt, put on pressure

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

which resulted in the issuing of the proclamation of March,
1922. Some decision had by this time become imperative,
and I do not doubt that what Allenby did was necessary in
very difficult circumstances. But the granting of Indepen-
dence by Proclamation with the "reserved questions" unset-
tled was a far worse solution than the Treaty recommended
by the Commission, which would have settled the "reserved
questions" prior to or simultaneously with the grant of
Independence. This we regarded as the essence of our plan,
and, if adopted, it would have saved the interminable and
fruitless controversies about these questions which have kept
Egyptian politics in a seethe, and prevented Egyptian Govern-
ments and Parliaments from concentrating on their internal
affairs. As I write, this situation is still causing trouble, but
even now I hope that the solution proposed by the Mission
will eventually be reached.

100

CHAPTER XXVII

INDIA, 1911 AND 1926

The Great Durbar — The Indian Mysteries — The King-Emperor
and the Journalists — Fifteen Years After — A Change of
Atmosphere — Swarajists at Delhi — Pleasures of Indian Travel
— Memory Pictures — Moghul Architecture.

FOR a man chained to a sedentary occupation, I have
been fortunate in opportunities of foreign travel.
Early I made up my mind that there was no holiday possible
for a journalist except out of the country. Ten autumns
were spent in Italy, and afterwards as many winter months
on the Riviera. There were also short journeys to Germany
and Austria, and many fortnights at Etretat, where I shared
with Ernest and Reginald McKenna the privilege of bathing
on the rough days when the Administration forbade all but
the three Englishmen to go in. The war stopped this —
otherwise one or other of us would surely have been drowned,
for vanity compelled us to brave it, and we grew by degrees
a little less equal to the strong swimming and quick move-
ments necessary to dodge big waves on a steep shingly beach.
Bathing was always a great part of an autumn holiday, and
the old Lido, before fashion invaded it, is still an enchanting
memory.

It was not till 1 9 1 1 that my wife and I could gratify our dream
of going a long journey, and then the Coronation Durbar
at Delhi afforded the excuse and the opportunity. Urged
by our old friend, Sir George Roos-Keppel, the High Com-
missioner of the North- West Provinces, who invited us to
be his guests, I formed the plan of going as my own Special
Correspondent, and the Directors of the Westminster Gazette
very good-naturedly fell in. Up to the last moment it was

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doubtful whether I should be able to go, for the Agadir trou-
ble still hung over the scene, and the French settlement with
the Germans was concluded only a few days before we sailed.
India to me was a dazzling and fascinating novelty, and the
Durbar beyond all pageantry that I had ever seen or imagined.
I had followed Indian affairs closely from the time that Morley
went to the India Office, and I went out burdened with the
secrets of the King's Proclamation — the transfer of the
Capital, the revocation of the partition of Bengal, and so
forth — on which I had written articles and left them behind
me in sealed envelopes for publication on the appropriate
dates. But I felt an extraordinary difficulty in writing the
two or three articles a week which I had stipulated to send
home. The thing glittered so, the first impressions were so
scattered and so confusing that I hardly knew where to begin.
Finally, I hit upon the plan of just describing the scene as I
went from place to place — the scene as viewed from a railway
carriage, and jotted down at the moment in hasty pencil
sketches and scribbled notes, with the simple things recorded
that the ordinary writer on India takes for granted or thinks
too familiar for notice. It was very naive, but it happened to
be what a great many English readers wanted, and it carried
me through half my prescribed task. Since we toured in
Rajputana, and after the Durbar went to Simla and up to
Peshawar and over the Khyber and other Passes, material was
abundant.

But the Westminster^, being a political paper, wanted
something more than that, and I knew that, sooner or later,
I should be expected to convey my views about the Govern-
ment of India and its affairs. Here the difficulties began.
I asked for information, and it was vouchsafed to me in
gushing streams from the highest sources, but I was rapidly
made aware that it would be thought gross presumption if I
offered any observations of my own. All Anglo-India was
on guard against Padgett, M.P., and I was on the even lower
plane of the globe-trotting journalist. My host, Roos-
Keppel, and Harcourt Butler alone encouraged me to go on
and use my own wits; others explained patiently that India
was unknowable. You thought you knew something about
it when you had been there three months, you knew you knew

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nothing about it when you had been there three years, and
you gave up trying to know anything about it when you had
been there thirty. It was deeply discouraging, but journalism
is all vanity and presumption and the imperative answer was
that I had to do it. My official informants might not see the
necessity, but in that case they had the simple remedy of not
reading what I wrote.

So seven or eight presumptuous articles dealt with the
forbidden theme, and drew a letter from Morley strongly
urging that they should be republished with the rest in book
form. Hence a little volume, called "The Indian Scene,"
which sold moderately well at the time, but has now been
long out of print. I have no pride in it; Indian officialism
had damped me, and I suppressed some things which I felt,
and said others with a caution which I feel now was exag-
gerated. I left India with an uneasy feeling that, high-minded
and disinterested as the Raj undoubtedly was, mortal men
could not be so infallible as it claimed to be and that its
lofty attitude to its own brood of educated Indians must end
in trouble.

Let me give a little instance which I did not record at the
time. A day or two after our arrival in the camp at Delhi,
where we were being entertained by Sir George Roos-Keppel,
I went to pay my respects to the Journalists' Camp. The
British and European journalists were on one side of it and
the Indian journalists on the other. After visiting the first
I crossed over to the other and asked to see their President,
who greeted me very warmly. Presently he told me that I
was the first Englishman who had written his name in their
book, though they had been there nearly ten days. I con-
cealed my surprise, and said it was a pleasure to be the first
on the list. The next day I received an invitation to dine with
the Indian journalists in the following week, which I accepted.
News of this apparently got abroad in the Camp, for a day or
two later I received a visit from a distinguished Anglo-Indian
journalist, an old friend of mine, who said he had been asked
by his colleagues to explain certain things to me which, as a
newcomer, I could not be expected to know. The chief of
these was that in accepting an invitation to dine with the
Indian journalists I had broken all the rules and unknowingly

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lowered the prestige of the craft. He begged me, therefore,
to find some way of cancelling this acceptance, and promised
me that if I would do so nothing more would be said about it.

My wrath rose, and with the familiarity of old friendship
I told him I would see him somewhere first. I took the
aggressive and said I thought it a monstrous discourtesy
that these people should be invited as guests of the Govern-
ment of India and then boycotted by the English in the Camp.
He said they were "seditious" and that I was encouraging
"sedition"; I said I should be seditious if I were treated in
that way. He commented severely on the danger of Radical
journalists being let loose in India and went away sorrowful.
I went to the dinner, spent a very pleasant evening, and
arranged to visit the Camp on two mornings in the week, and
have talks with certain Indians who would be there to receive
me. Very interesting talks they were, mainly about
religion and caste and social questions, and hardly at
all about politics. Some of them were recorded in "The
Indian Scene."

But the incident did not end there. A day or two later
I had a letter from Lord Stamfordham, the King's Secretary,
who asked me to keep my eyes open for any little thing the
King might do outside the official programme. This seemed
to me an opportunity. I told Lord Stamfordham exactly
what had happened, and said I thought it would be a very
useful thing if one of the King's equerries could call at both
Journalists' Camps and inscribe his Majesty's name in both
the British and Indian books. The King at once authorized
this, and the effect was extraordinary. Most of the officials
followed suit, the Indian as well as the British book was soon
full of illustrious names (including that of my old friend
who had brought me the remonstrance) and the sense of
grievance and boycott was removed. The fact that the King-
Emperor had paid them this compliment blotted out all else,
and even the "seditious" joined in the rejoicing. In after
years I have had letters from Indian journalists written on the
anniversary of this incident, which have begun by reminding
me that "on this day the King-Emperor honoured the journal-
ists of India by inscribing his name in their book at the Great
Durbar."

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It is difficult to believe that this was only fifteen years ago.
Returning to India in 1926, 1 found the atmosphere complete-
ly changed. So far from warning me off the ground, the
British journalists urged me to see and speak to the Indian
journalists, including the most extreme, and helped to arrange
occasions when I might do so. Indeed, the tables were
now a little more than turned, for on one of these occasions
at Calcutta I got myself into sad trouble by delivering what
I thought to be an innocent homily on the dangers and
pitfalls of opposition journalism. It was taken as a rebuke
to Indian journalism de haut en has, and the reply came quickly
from all over the country. Expressions of injured feelings
were still pouring in upon me when I left the country many
weeks later. But this in no way marred the very pleasant
intercourse which I had with Indian politicians and journalists
of all parties and opinions. I spoke with the same freedom
to them as they did to me, and received unbounded kindness
and hospitality from them. This time the English took it
for granted that a travelling Englishman would move about
freely in Indian circles, and most of them were doing the
same themselves. At public dinners, lunches and conferences
one found English and Indian sitting side by side, debating
with each other on terms of perfect equality.

A corresponding change had come over the officials.
A few of the old school might lament the "lost Dominion,"
but the majority had fallen in with the new conditions and
found, I think, a great deal of pleasure in their work. To me
India seemed a much more hopeful and friendly place than
when I had last seen it. This, as I interpreted it, was the
main result of the "reforms," and it outweighed all the
creaking and jolting of very imperfect machinery. However
hostile their supposed relations might be, men could not work
together on Councils, Assemblies and Committees and rub
shoulders in the lobbies of Parliament Houses without estab-
lishing a new relation. I was at Delhi in March, 1926, when
the Swarajist party walked out of the Assembly, and was

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greatly struck by the general good humour with which this
supposed demonstration of irreconcilable hostility was con-
ducted. The Swarajist leaders came to see me in the afternoon
to ask me what I thought about it, and I told them frankly
that I thought it disastrous. But I could not take it tragically,
for I had seen Indian and English members chaffing each other
in the lobby afterwards ; and when someone suggested that the
Indian leader was actuated by personal hostility to the British,
he instantly wrote to the papers to say that on the contrary
he counted Englishmen among his best friends and that the
"sun-dried bureaucrats" were very good fellows when you
got to know them.

This time the officials encouraged me to express my opin-
ions freely for what they were worth, and since they were now
up to the neck in my own familiar business of politics I saw
no reason to hold back. So I set down and afterwards pub-
lished, in a book called "The Changing East," the impressions
which Indian politics made on an English journalist. Neces-
sarily they involved me in some controversy; for it was
impossible to give equal satisfaction to both Indians and
British, and a third party who drops in on their controversies
from another continent must always have the appearance of
an interloper. What was specially in my mind in writing
about this journey was, so far as I could, to counteract the
idea, which the old school of officials had to some extent
created, that the Indian Civil Service under the new conditions
is not a fit career for an enterprising and self-respecting young
man. The very contrary seems to me to be the truth. The
political experiment now being made in India is one of the
most fascinating in all the world, and it gives scope for a
far wider range of qualities than any merely bureaucratic
service. The Indian official of the new type may make his
mark not only as an administrator, but as Parliamentarian
and public man, and if he has character and vision, he may
exert an influence out of all proportion to his official position.
The generally meaningless phrase that a country is in a state
of transition does really apply to India, and we have begun by
applying Western methods, some of which may, as time goes
on, need to be abandoned or modified. To encourage India
to be Indian and to develop her institutions in an Indian

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way which will bridge the gap between the masses and the
educated few is, as I see it, the way of safety for her and for
us ; but it must, for many years to come, be experiment all the
way, calling for patience and insight from those who are
engaged in it.

Ill

The pleasures of Indian travel are to me among the greatest
in life, and I wish I could live over again the months that I
have spent in the country. I love the Indian lads with their
quick wits and charming manners and effervescing intelli-
gence, and have never spent happier hours than in being bom-
barded by them. I like the serious talks on religion and
philosophy and the Hindu way of life which one may have
with their elders, if one takes a little trouble to find out
congenial spirits. Then there is the vast background of the
common life led by the millions in the villages — so different
from anything else in the world — with its intricate maze of
custom and tradition, its loyalties and its obligations, its
paganism and its piety, its patience and cheerfulness and its
unending struggle to fill its belly. The passing traveller
cannot hope to penetrate this life, but it is a perpetual chal-
lenge to him, and keeps him on edge with the sense of a
fascinating unexplored world.

I have never felt the need of doing much in India except
walk or drive about and keep my eyes open. The show places
are wonderful enough, but the everyday scene is the main
interest. You may see more beautiful faces in a morning's
walk in an Indian bazaar than you would see in a week in a
European city, and for variety of human types there is no
country like it. Much is said about the clash between races,
and the baffling political questions which divide Indian and
British. Yet the slightest advance from your side seems to
bring an immediate response, and you bear away memories
of kindness and friendliness from almost every place you
visit. My wife and I went into the Great Mosque at Agra
on the day of the Bakr 'Id, and found a multitude of people
assembled there. We stood aside till the prayer was over,
and bowed to the Imam as he came down from his pulpit.

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It seemed the merest act of courtesy, but immediately we
were surrounded by a throng of the faithful saluting in
answer, and for twenty minutes we held a sort of levee, with
the crowd filing past us, and fathers bringing their children
to shake hands with us. An English friend told us that in
a long experience of India, he had never heard of such a thing
happening before, but then he added that he had never
before heard of an Englishman bowing to an Imam, and sur-
mised that we had been taken for Mohammedans.

The charm and variety of the Indian landscape are unfail-
ing. There are the tremendous mountains and the great
plains, both in a brilliant atmosphere halving distances and
giving an extraordinary sharpness of outline and density
of mass to every feature. Memory stores up vivid little
pictures — the well by the mango-grove with the bullocks
drawing water; the grand trunk road with the camels
coming down it, and the monkeys under the trees ; the sacred
tank with the bathers on the steps and the trees hanging over
it; Kinchin junga swimming in the high blue; a glittering
corner of the bazaar at Ajmer or Ahmedabad; Delhi from
the Ridge; the Afghan plain from the Khyber; Peshawar rising
out of its wooded valley; the sweeping curve of the great
Himalayas as seen from Mahatsu or the hills above Simla;
the gleaming white sand, black rocks and blue waters of the
Indus. The scene, as one remembers it, is alive with people,
men, women and children, in all the colours of the rainbow
and every gradation of clothes and no clothes down to the
innocent nakedness of the fascinating brown children.
Evening brings all home, and one looks in memory over the
wide plains with the innumerable little processions — men,
women, children and bullock carts, the children trotting by
the side or on the shoulders of their parents — that make for
the villages as the sun goes down.

It is the fashion with the young moderns to speak slight-
ingly of Moghul architecture; they are disappointed with
the Taj as Oscar Wilde was with the Atlantic Ocean. I
cannot ascend to these heights. To me the Taj is one of the
loveliest buildings in the world and the perfect tribute to a
beautiful woman. It is undoubtedly feminine, but in that
entirely appropriate sense; and if the exquisite decoration

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which is lavished on the white marble of the Mausoleum is, as
someone has objected, more suited to a bridal chamber than
a tomb, that also, we may reasonably suppose to have been
Shah Jehan's intention. But the Taj is not merely this one
building; it is a group of buildings set in a great formal garden
of fascinating design and rare beauty. There are the mosques
on either side of the central Mausoleum, the pavilions in the
side-alleys, the vast entrance gate, and the long marble tank
which leads from the gate to the main building, with its levels
so cunningly broken as to get the utmost effect out of the
reflections. I have spent scores of hours in this garden, and
the beauty and cunningness of the whole design, and the
charm of its varying aspects at morning, noon, evening and
moonlight have more and more sunk into me. Then there
is the incomparable view from the other side of the Jumna in
which the entire group is seen fronting the river with the
numerous domes and minarets grouped in their right relation.

The hasty traveller may not see these things and rush away
with a superficial impression of dazzle and glitter. But
Moghul architecture is not to be judged by the Taj alone.
Take in Fatephur Sikri, Sekundra, the Fort at Agra, the great
Mosque and Fort at Delhi and the twenty miles of tombs and
deserted cities between Delhi and the Kutab, and you may begin
to judge of its variety and capacity. There are great buildings
with massive walls and bastions, and exquisite little structures
inlaid like jewel-boxes; the builders employ brick, stone, or
marble with equal facility, and make extraordinary patterns
of plaster and looking-glass to decorate a ceiling. Hindu
architecture with its loaded decoration and perplexing alle-
gories is much more alien to the Western eye and cannot be
rightly judged by the traveller in Central or Northern India.
But all over the country there are strange and interesting build-
ings unnoticed in guide-books, and there is scarcely any town
or large village in which you may not discover an ancient fort,
temple, or mosque, or find beautiful old houses with over-
hanging carved windows in the bazaars.

From the end of October to the middle of March the
climate of Northern India is as near perfect as climate can be ;
the sun is brilliant without being too hot, the nights are cool
and crisp, and there is very little wind. After mid-March

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there is a general and rather rapid stoking up, and by the end
of the month, if you happen to be in the plains, you will
begin to learn what your fellow-beings who live in India
and don't go to the hills, have to endure for five months in
the year. The one drawback to travel is the indifference of
the hotels, except in the few show places, but that is made up
for by an unbounded hospitality. We stayed with the Read-
ings at Delhi, with the Lyttons at Calcutta, with the Haileys
at Lahore, with Rabindranath Tagore at Santinekatan, with
the Jam Sahib at Jamnagar, and with other friends at Meerut
and at Ahmedabad, where I saw and interviewed the great
Mahatma Gandhi. At the end one had the guilty sense of
taking everything and giving nothing; but it was a special
pleasure to be with the Readings, who were old friends,
during their last month in India, and to be able to judge for
ourselves of the affection in which they were held by Indian
and European at the end of a very anxious and difficult
Viceroyalty.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN EAST AND WEST

To Turkey by Sea — An S.O.S. — Angora and Mosul — An Argument
with the Turks — Constantinople and Robert College — America
and the Washington Conference — Impressions of American
Politics — The Unexplored Background — Unity and Variety —
Briand's Speech at the Conference and Its Effect — Balfour's
Contribution — A Talk with Henry James — Thoughts about
the Future — A Canadian Memory.

A VISIT to Turkey was part of our winter journey in
1925-26, and we spent the first three weeks of Decem-
ber in that country. We took the sea route from Trieste to
Constantinople in an Italian ship of about 3,000 tons, and
between Athens and Constantinople ran into the worst storm
I have ever been in at sea. For thirty hours we battled with
tremendous seas in a snow blizzard which made it impossible
to see more than a few yards ahead. About midnight our
captain picked up an S.O.S. from a ship (hundreds of miles
away in the Adriatic) in which he had every reason to think
his own wife was travelling. Grand Guignol never invented
a grimmer tale, and sympathy with the unhappy man fighting
the tumult with this cry coming to him out of the night
carried us through our own anxieties. His wife, as it turned
out, was safe; and whether he had done well to drive through
the storm in that island-infested sea, instead of running to
shelter, as most other ships did, became afterwards a lively
subject of controversy among sea captains. We who knew
the facts held him excused, and signed a round robin to him
for the skill and courage of his navigation. Let me add that
in fine weather there could be no more enchanting voyage
than from Trieste to Constantinople. The approach to

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Athens, up the Gulf of Corinth, through the Corinth Canal
and across the Bay of Salamis, is a flashing vision of wine-
dark seas and glorious mountains, scenes beautiful and historic
crowded into a day's journey. On our subsequent voyage
from Constantinople to Alexandria we saw the Dardanelles
by daylight, visited Smyrna and looked on that scene of
desolation. It was indeed appalling, but the golden sunshine
and the beauty of the incomparable Gulf are what I chiefly
remember.

My principal object in going to Turkey, in December,
1925, was to be at Angora when the decision of the League of
Nations on the Mosul dispute was delivered. There was
something like a panic on that subject, and a large number of
those who professed to be best informed were convinced that
if Mosul were awarded to us, the Turks would seize it — for
it was then practically undefended — and defy us to turn them
out. On reaching Athens I found that Greek residents in
Constantinople were coming in large numbers by every ship
"to spend Christmas in Athens," having the not unreasonable
apprehension that, if there were trouble, it would fall first
upon them. Even before I left London, Greek friends of
mine had begged me not to dream of going to Angora. To
be in Constantinople at such a time, they said, was bad enough,
but at Angora my retreat would be cut off, and to go there
would be putting my head into a noose. When I reached
Constantinople, I found the general opinion among British
residents to be that the Turks were bluffing, but I was still
warned of a certain risk that they might not be, or that they
might bluff themselves over the edge. I was advised, on the
whole, to postpone my visit until the Mosul decision had
been given and digested. But this was to spoil the object of my
journey, which was to be there when it was given, and, rf
the chance offered, to use any influence I might have to pre-
vent trouble. So I betook myself to the Turks to whom I
had introductions, and when they not only encouraged me
to go but offered to make arrangements for my seeing Turkish
Ministers and officials, I felt the way was clear.

I have described the sequel in "The Changing East,"
but a few general impressions may be given here. One
would certainly not go to Angora for pleasure, and before I

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left it I gained a real respect for the fortitude with which
Turkish Ministers and officials and deputies had turned their
backs on Constantinople and consented to live in this place.
There is a certain picturesqueness in the old town, which
runs along a high volcanic ridge rising suddenly out of the
Anatolian plateau, but with the exception of a few rather
.Teutonic-looking new buildings, the official town is ram-
shackle and squalid. For the first two days of my visit there was
an unceasing deluge of tropical rain and the mud was ankle
deep. The one and only inn was purely Oriental; except
coffee and toast there was no food in it, and the window of
my room looked out on the little square which was inci-
dentally the place of execution. Fourteen men had been
hanged there shortly before I came, and six were awaiting
execution at an unknown hour. Fortunately I was spared
the sight, but the thought of it a little disturbed my slum-
bers, and I opened my curtain in a rather gingerly way
when I got up in the mornings. No one in the inn spoke
anything but Turkish, and when I thought I had made it
clear that I wanted some writing paper and ink, eight cups
of black coffee were brought me on a tray. Jane Austen
always goes with me on my travels, and I read "Emma" into
the small hours in my little room and wondered what
Mr. Woodhouse would have thought of Angora.

I saw Kemal Pasha drive through the streets, but I did
not interview him. I was told towards the end of my visit
that he would see me if I would stay a little longer, but since
it was stipulated that I should not say I had seen him or repeat
anything that he said, it seemed to me that I should gain
nothing by waiting. But I did see Ministers and officials
and deputies and certain other people who were supposed
to be the special intimates of Kemal, and with them debated
every phase of the Mosul question up to the moment when
the critical Cabinet met to discuss the League decision.
This, I may add, was not quite a random butting-in of the
unauthorized journalist, for though I was acting as a journalist
for the Westminster Gazette, I had taken some steps to find
out that I should not be embarrassing the officially responsible
people. They had encouraged me to go, provided I did not
look to them to cover me if I got into difficulties, and they

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seemed to think that I could at least do no harm. The point
was that I had been a sharp critic of some of the Colonial
Secretary's proceedings at Geneva in the previous September,
and was known to the Turks as such. I was, therefore,
in a stronger position than most Englishmen to tell them
that defiance of the League of Nations, after its decision had
been given, would estrange any opinion that was sympathetic
to them in England and involve them in desperate difficulties
with other European nations. This I did to the best of my
ability, while cabling home en clair a strong plea for concilia-
tory negotiations on the basis of the League's decision. I
have no means of judging whether my arguments made any
impression, but what seemed to tell most at the time was the
warning that it was not advisable to give Signor Mussolini a
legalized opportunity of occupying Smyrna.

The Turks were very anxious to impress upon me that
their regime was legal and constitutional, and I sat in the
Parliament House watching a debate conducted on the most
decorous European model, until the smells from a cesspool,
which seemed to be immediately under the floor of the Cham-
ber, drove me into the open. I also interviewed the President
of the Chamber and for half an hour we solemnly debated —
he talking Turkish and I French with a Turkish-French inter-
preter as go-between — whether the Turkish Parliament fol-
lowed the British or the French model in its handling of
finance. Between the three of us the subject became extremely
confused, and I felt as I did on another occasion when I had
undertaken to explain the nature of cricket to a German in his
own tongue. I think it was known to the President, as it was
to me, that if the Turkish Parliament rejected a Budget, Kemal
Pasha would want to know the reason why. His box with
the gilt chair in it is, perhaps, the most impressive object in
the Assembly, and I was told that, when he came he was
attended by aides-de-camp who made his wishes known to
the deputies on the floor below. An instance was cited to
me in which a group of deputies had ignored these instructions,

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and my informant spoke of it with pride as proof of the high
independence of the Turkish Assembly. But six months
later Kemal made a swoop, and fifteen leading members of
the Opposition — including, I fear, some to whom I was
introduced — were hanged in Constantinople for complicity,
or alleged complicity, in an attempt to assassinate him. By
general admission it was not wise to oppose Kemal if you
wished for length of days.

While we were in Constantinople the roving Commission
of the "Terror," rather ironically called the "Committee of
Independence/' descended on our hotel bringing panic with
it. It had just held a "bloody assize" somewhere on the coast
of the Black Sea, and by all accounts had fed the gallows very
liberally. A Turkish friend expressed the pious hope that
it would be content with hanging an Armenian, but nobody
knew, and it was uncomfortable to have to rub shoulders
with it in the hotel. A silence fell on the city, and I took a
hint to cancel some of my appointments and drop politics for
sight-seeing. But it was a relief to get out of this atmosphere
and spend a few days at the British Embassy, where the
Ambassador (Ronald Lindsay) and his wife abounded in
kindness and hospitality that was all the more welcome after
the mud of Angora and the heat and semi-darkness of our
rooms in the hotel. We were now free to go sight-seeing and
took our fill of the splendid, squalid, fascinating, melancholy
city of Constantinople.

We had other hosts, especially Dr. and Mrs. Gates, of
Robert College, who took us in and nursed my wife, who had
fallen sick while I was at Angora, with the utmost care and
kindness. The College and the President's house stand high
above the Bosphorus at the point — just beyond Bebek —
where it turns sharply to the north on its way to the Black
Sea. From it there is a charming prospect of ancient castles,
old round towers, villas and palaces with cypresses in their
gardens, little towns and villages either at the water's edge or
running steeply down to it through a pleasant verdure.
Nothing could be more peaceful or more delightful to the
eye, and one would say that if anywhere there is a favoured
spot it is this. I gathered, nevertheless, that, for the Gates's
and their Staff, life in the previous twelve years had been full

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

of trouble and anxiety. They had gone doggedly on with
their work all through the war and the Dardanelles Expedition,
though it was their serious belief and that of every American
in Constantinople that if the Allies got through, the Turks
would fire the city and massacre the Christian inhabitants.
Difficulties were by no means over when the peace came, and
it still needs a very intelligent diplomacy to maintain foreign
teachers and schools against the intense nationalism of the
new Turkey.

Dr. Gates asked me to speak to the boys of the College,
and I found myself on a Sunday morning facing two or three
hundred of them in the School Chapel. They were of a
dozen nationalities, representing all the races, Christian and
Moslem, which for generations have been cutting each other's
throats in the Near East. They were well-behaved, intelli-
gent, attractive-looking lads who lived together in perfect
goodwill in spite of their differences in race and religion.
Sermons do not come easily to me, but my thoughts went
back to the devastation and misery I had seen in the countries
from which they came and I discoursed for twenty minutes
on the simple virtue of kindness between man and man.

Ill

I went to America to attend the Washington Conference
in the autumn and winter of 1921, and spent about three
months in the country. For the greater part of this time I
was necessarily at Washington, and since I was writing two
articles a day, one to cable back to the Westminster, the other
for the New York Evening Post, I had little leisure to look
about me. For the concentration of politics within a small
area, there is no other city in the world to compare with Wash-
ington. The whole population consists of officials, diplo-
mats, congressmen and those who cater for them and wait
on them. It is a charming city and will some day be a
magnificent one. Nowhere can one see so much ingenious
and pleasing modern architecture, and if its parks could be
handed over to a select committee of English and Scottish
gardeners they would beat most in Europe. Undoubtedly

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the official city gives the town-planner a unique opportunity,
but there is another aspect of it which sets an Englishman
thinking, when he is in Washington. Politicians in all
countries are a peculiar people, and whether they gain or
lose by being thrown back on each other's society, without
the distracting and correcting influences of the common life,
is not altogether certain.

The Washington Conference was admirably managed,
and the impression left on me was of something extraordi-
narily unlike the European notion of how things are done in
America. There was no hustling; secrets were well kept —
until he rose in the plenary Conference on the first day no one
had the least idea what Mr. Secretary Hughes was going to
say — American statesmen when they spoke were quiet and
business-like; the newspapers were full of long and serious
articles on different phases of foreign affairs ; the hospitality,
though lavish, was quiet and decorous. I shook hands with
President Harding and had interesting talks with Hughes,
Elihu Root and a good many other American politicians. To
see them on their own ground and to hear their comments
day by day on the course of the Conference and the attitude
of the Europeans, was to get an insight into the American
point of view which no European could evolve from his inner
consciousness or pick up from casual conversations with
Americans in Europe. What struck one chiefly was the
extreme cautiousness of American politicians. Neither Repub-
licans nor Democrats were ready to take the risks that are
commonly taken by British parties. Both seemed to be living
in a state of doubt as to what the great mass of Americans,
especially in the west and middle-west, were saying and think-
ing; and to give these people a lead seemed a dangerous
adventure to all wise men. Parties, I was assured, had to
be absolutely sure of their ground before they committed
themselves to novel opinions on any subject, and especially
on subjects touching American relations with Europe.

This sense of a vast unexplored world of opinion seemed
to hang over Washington, and one felt it to be something
different from the doubts and perplexities of politicians in
Europe. It was not merely that politicians in America, as
elsewhere, were waiting for a sign; it was that serious and

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

responsible men had a real apprehension of setting forces in
motion which might have incalculable results among the
millions of many races spread over the American continent.
The English or French politician can tell within limits how
John Bull or Jacques Bonhomme will respond to a given
appeal, but no one in Washington seemed to be at all certain
what brother Jonathan would say to any initiative starting
from the Eastern States; and not to make rash experiments
with him appeared to be an instinctive first principle with
both parties. At first I felt oppressed with the seeming
lifelessness of American politics compared with our own —
its rigid mechanism and lack of the vivid and adventurous
elements one looks for in Europe — but a very little moving
about even in the Eastern States made one realize, as one
cannot in Europe, the extraordinary difference of the American
conditions. One cannot be even a few months in America
or wander freely in any American city, especially New York,
without a growing sense of wonder at the achievement which
has made a unity of its immense variety. Looking at it,
one understood better Wilson's difficulties in the first two
years of the war, and the extreme reluctance of the leaders of
opinion then and since to launch new and possibly explosive
ideas upon unexplored ground.

M. Briand has done such splendid work in subsequent
years in the cause of international appeasement that it may
seem churlish to dwell on any mistake in his previous career.
Yet if the Washington Conference is to be understood, it
must be put on record that he — no doubt unwillingly and
unwittingly — destroyed the hopes, which ran high after the
first plenary Conference, of bringing America back into the
European fold. Hughes's speech and Balfour's prompt
response at the first Session had had an enormous success,
and a day or two later the journalists were informed "through
the usual channel" that President Harding contemplated a
continuing series of Conferences embracing, first, land arma-
ments, and then economic questions, including, as we were
encouraged to assume, international debts. Then, at the
second Session, came Briand with a speech which acted as an
ice-cold douche on all these plans. He seemed to argue —
or, at all events, this was the logical conclusion of his argument

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IN EAST AND WEST

— that there could be no security for France while Germany-
lived and grew in population. Her disarmament was no
security. She had millions of men trained to arms in the late
war and a rapidly increasing population, which would be a
potential fighting force far superior to that at the disposal of
France. Every German man was a potential soldier, every
German workshop a potential munition factory. France,
therefore, had gone to the utmost limits in reducing her
army after the war, and she could not afford to sacrifice a
single battalion of her present strength. As an oratorical
performance this speech was extremely effective, as an
act of statesmanship it was disastrous.

I met "Pertinax" as we came out of the building, and he
was glowing with enthusiasm. With him was Pierre Millet
— an old friend whose early death, two years later, was a heavy
loss to his own country and ours — and he, with his knowledge
of British and American feeling, did not at all share his com-
panion's elation. He knew, I think, that a very bad day's
work had been done, and cast about for ways of softening the
impression which he knew would be made. The American
Press was civil to all the delegates, and especially to the French,
and said little at the time, but the comments behind the scenes
were loud and angry. Serious people said straight out that
the whole Harding policy of "continuing Conferences" had
been shattered by this speech. It was noticed particularly
that Briand had not even glanced at the possibility of a recon-
ciliation between France and Germany, and had spoken as
if an eternal and unappeasable feud between the two was
written in the book of fate. If so, said these Americans,
thank God for the three thousand miles of stormy Atlantic
which divide Europe from America. Had Briand only been
able to make one of his subsequent "Locarno" speeches at
this Conference, the whole subsequent history might have
been different.

Great stress has been laid on the battleship agreement and
the "Pact of the Pacific" which resulted from the Conference.
These were achievements which I would not for a moment
belittle, but nobody could have been present at Washington
at this time without becoming aware that an even greater
opportunity was being thrown away. The Republican party

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were not at all easy in their consciences about the attitude
they had taken up since the war. They felt, as everybody
felt, that the reaction from Wilsonism had gone much too far,
and Harding, I think, had them with him in his attempt to
feel his way back to regular and helpful relations with Europe.
But Briand's speech first, and later the French attitude on
the submarine question, drove opinion the other way, and
left the men in the street saying that Europe was incurable
and had better be left to her own devices. Certainly the
hardening on the debt question dated from this time, for the
idealists who had pleaded for indulgence now began to say
that remission of debts would merely release more money
to be squandered on armaments in Europe, and that all claims
had better be kept alive and used as a lever to bring European
war-makers to a saner frame of mind.

A few days after Briand's speech, my wife and I lunched
with Jusserand, then French Ambassador in Washington.
We were alone, and had a long and serious talk about the
situation in which I pleaded for some mitigation of the French
attitude. I got no satisfaction from him. He said that
Englishmen were incapable of understanding the terrible
impression made on the French mind by the devastation which
the Germans had wrought in France, and Frenchmen would
be betraying their duty if they relied on any spurious recon-
ciliation. The one thing, in his view, was to tell the truth
to the Americans, and he relied on the historical friendship
between the United States and France to produce the right
result. One was always coming across this "historical friend-
ship" in Washington, and in virtue of it Frenchmen claimed
to be more intimate with the American Government than we
were and to know its mind far better than we did. I am
afraid there has been some disillusionment on that subject
since, and it seemed to me at the time that the French had
not the smallest idea of the extent to which they were estrang-
ing the historical friend by their attitude at the Conference.

As the principal British delegate, Balfour did his work
with his usual skill. He exactly conformed to the American
idea of a British statesman, that is, he was in almost all respects
the exact opposite of what they expect their own statesmen
to be. His elegance, his detached but always affable manner,

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his air of wishing to be informed, when everybody else was
streaming with information, his habit of improvising and
hesitating, and seemingly complete innocence of all profes-
sional ways, captivated the whole tribe of professional poli-
ticians. I was one of a small party of guests deputed to go
with him to the great banquet given to him in New York, and
I confess I trembled a little when, after a remarkably
effective and word-perfect oration from the chairman (Davis,
lately Ambassador in London, and afterwards Democratic
candidate for the Presidency), he opened in his seemingly
unprepared manner, feeling about for words and syntax,
hesitating and correcting as if he were on the front bench of
the House of Commons. Would he ever get into his stride,
and, if he did not, what sort of impression would he make ?
Apprehension, as I soon found, was quite unnecessary.
This was what they wanted and expected from him, so
English, so distinguished, as my neighbour said. They praised
his voice, his demeanour, the modesty of his approach, and
presently he gripped them and carried them along with him
to a triumphant conclusion. Seldom does one see things
quite true to type, but in Washington, Balfour was exactly
what the best kind of Englishman is expected to be, and the
Americans were what we expected the best kind of Americans
to be. Seeing the group of very able Americans who were
then assembled at Washington, helped one to understand how
America is made safe for democracy in spite of the rather
discouraging appearance of her political machine and ward
politicians.

Soon after I returned from my visit to India in 191 2,
I met Henry James, who had just returned from a visit to
America after forty years' absence. He instantly plunged into
a comparison of what must have been my feelings on seeing
India with his own feelings on seeing America. The theme
in his hands took on an extraordinary complexity, and I found
it difficult to believe that, let alone my supposed feelings at
seeing India, anything in the world could have suggested
such intricate and bewildering ideas as America appeared to

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have put into the mind of Henry James. But I understood
it better after being in the country a few weeks; and I came
away with a strong feeling that hardly any question one could
ask about America admitted of a simple answer. It was
European undoubtedly, but Europe in a kaleidoscope, making
new and strange patterns in which different racial elements
came uppermost in succession. What sort of mixture these
various elements would make at any given moment seemed
unpredictable to the wisest; and whether in the meantime
the different races might not transfer their estrangements and
animosities from their homelands to their country of adoption
was evidently an anxious question on which all American
statesmen kept their eye in their dealings with Europe. I
have felt ever since that any wooing of America by English-
men on the merely sentimental ground of kinship and cousin-
ship must defeat itself, and that the nations which ask least
of her and best understand her difficulties are most likely to
win her approval.

Undoubtedly in America the European grows hungry for
the ancient familiar things of his own continent, and through
their absence learns perhaps for the first time what they really
mean to him. But in compensation he gets the sense of
something new and very exciting. Almost everything in
America stirs one to think of the future, just as almost every-
thing in Europe stirs one to think of the past. One wonders
all the time what is in the making, and one finds its people
engaged in an unceasing experiment, scrapping and being
scrapped, rooted in nothing, moving on from one occupation
to another, with a quickness and mobility which one looks for
in vain in old countries. To the frugal European eye there
is a grand prodigality in the unceasing exchange of old lamps
for new, which goes on in America; and sometimes it occurs
to one that even Americans might achieve more with less
hustle and friction. But there is none of the travailing and
groaning which attend creation in Europe.

We wound up this journey with a flying visit to Ontario,
where old friends entertained us in the town of London.
Canadian hospitality knows no bounds, and I felt ashamed at
the poor return I made for it in the speeches which I was
invited to make at public dinners and luncheons. The

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eagerness and receptiveness of these audiences in new coun-
tries deserve the very best that a speaker can give them, and
in the hurry of travel it is so difficult to give more than the
second best. Most of all I felt humbled when called upon to
speak to children assembled in the schools, as happened to me
three times in one morning. They were beautiful schools,
and the children made a vivid impression of youth, high spirits
and brimming curiosity. On the spur of the moment I did
my best, but often since I have thought of the lost oppor-
tunities of that morning. One rare pleasure we had in these
days. My wife had had six hundred Canadian patients in her
hospital during the war, and some of them had come from
this neighbourhood. Remembering this, the ladies of London,
Ontario, organized a special reception for her and spoke
with warm gratitude of what she had done for the Canadian
lads. Those of them who lie in the churchyard at Tankerton
were not forgotten.

We spent five or six hours at Niagara on the way back,
and saw the falls against a snow background on a brilliant
winter day. No photograph or picture of this famous scene
comes near the reality as we saw it that day; and I have an
abiding memory of blue-green waters plunging into an
amber mist with rainbows flashing in the heart of it. Turner
in his later period might have conveyed something of its
mystery and beauty, but the lovely iridescence of it is beyond
painting.

123
12

CHAPTER XXIX

A ROYAL COMMISSION

A Discouraging Record — Lord Gorell and the Divorce Commission
— The Evidence — The Attitude of the Minority — An Agitated
Debate — The Question of Reporting — A Rejected Solution —
The Equality of the Sexes — The Archbishop of York's Part —
Preparing the Majority Report.

IN the course of my life I have spent a great many hours
on Public Committees, Royal Commissions, Depart-
mental Inquiries and so forth, and if I had to record the
results in positive terms, I should have to set them down as
nil. Just as I have never succeeded in voting for a winning
candidate for Parliament, so I have never succeeded in induc-
ing any Government to take my advice, or that which I have
tendered in common with my colleagues on these occasions.
In 1907-8 I spent many laborious hours on a Departmental
Committee of the Board of Trade on the subject of Railways
and Traders, and that came to nothing. In 1911-12 I spent
many more hours on the Royal Commission on the Marriage
Laws and, so far, very little has come of that. In 191 3 and
1 9 14 I did a great deal of hard work for Mr. Lloyd George's
Land Committee, and the war made an end of anything that
might have come of that. In 191 9 and 1920, as already
recorded, I went to Egypt as a member of the Milner Mission,
and Lloyd George's Government made short work of the
unanimous Report of that body. This record is scarcely an
encouraging one for journalists who step outside their pro-
vince; and the best that can be said of most of these activities
is that they may in some measure have helped to educate
opinion and that they afforded me useful and interesting
experience, sometimes at the public expense.

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Much of this part of my story is dead beyond resurrection,
but I may, perhaps, say something about the Divorce Com-
mission of 1911-12, for one cannot abandon the hope that
some Government may yet pluck up courage to withstand
the minority which blocks the reform of the marriage laws.
Hearing the evidence convinced me that this is a matter of the
greatest social importance, and not at all, as some people still
suppose, the mere agitation of well-to-do persons suffering
from the "hard cases" of a law which is for the general well-
being.

It was, in every sense of the word, Lord Gorell's Commis-
sion. He was chairman, he inspired it, he brought to it the
weight of learning and experience which made the Majority
Report an exhaustive classic of the subject. His long experi-
ence as President of the Divorce Court had left him with a
deep conviction that wrongs were being inflicted on innocent
people for which there ought to be a remedy, and that the
marriage law was being brought into discredit by the collusive
evasion of it which was open to the rich, but not to the poor.
He literally worked himself to death over the Commission,
and after two years of it was a broken man. I retain the
greatest admiration and affection for him. To see him at work
was to see the finest legal mind under the inspiration of a real
passion for social justice. He was thinking not of the
fashionable petitioners and respondents whose scandals made
spicy reading for the newspapers, but of the large numbers of
poor people driven to lifelong judicial separations or irregular
connexions for lack of the relief which, in his view, the law
ought to give them.

As one heard the evidence on this subject, evidence coming
from all parts of the country, from magistrates, police officials
and social workers who could not be suspected of lax views
on the moral question, one hoped that it might break down
the ecclesiastical opposition. It was manifest that the judicial
separation which was the poor man or woman's only remedy,
could not enforce the lifelong celibacy which was its apparent
intention, and that it very seldom resulted in the reconcilia-
tions to which it was supposed to hold the door open. It
was so inevitable in the circumstances in which the great
majority of people live that the man left with a family should

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find a helpmeet, and that she should be a wife to him in all
but the name. It was so unfair that the woman should be
chained for life to a drunken, criminal, or dissolute husband
and left to fight single-handed to bring up a family. These
were not merely hard cases ; they were the inevitable
casualties of the institution of marriage, and in the
aggregate they imposed a vast deal of suffering which,
if our witnesses told the truth, was bringing marriage
into disrepute. For people brought their own judgment
to bear on each case according to its merits, and would
not regard as "living in sin" those whom they con-
sidered to be innocent victims of circumstances beyond
their control.

But all this evidence seemed to make no impression on the
minority. Their minds were made up that they would have
no new causes of divorce. Gorell put himself to immense
pains to study every part of scripture that could by any
stretch be brought to bear on this question, and, backed by
Lady Frances Balfour, Lord Guthrie and, on occasions,
myself, endeavoured to shake the clerical and Anglican wit-
nesses. Day after day we debated scripture texts supposed
to be the basis of the marriage law, and tried to show that the
narrow construction put on some of these was contrary
to the spirit of the Master, to say nothing of a wise Christian
policy in the modern world. We made no impression. It
was not, as we found, the texts, but the interpretation put
upon them by the Churches, the "Catholic tradition," the
decisions of ecclesiastical authority, which weighed with our
opponents, and seemed to hold them bound against all con-
cessions. To them our doctrine was not a thing which
could be debated by Royal Commissions or Parliament; it was
simply heresy. We tried to take them on that ground, and
urged that no one wished to prevent them from applying their
own view to themselves or making it part of the discipline of
their Churches; we only objected when they tried to enforce
this view through Parliament on other people who were not
members of their Churches and did not share their views.
But this, too, failed, for they said they had a duty to see that
the Christian view of marriage was applied to the whole
community.

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So from the beginning we were divided into two parties,
and Gorell's hope of a unanimous Report was defeated.
We had some agitated debates, especially one on a proposal,
thrown out in the hope of placating the minority, that the
respondent in a divorce case should not be allowed to marry
the co-respondent. I felt so strongly about this that I said
on the spur of the moment, and I am afraid with some heat,
that I should not only dissent from such a proposal, but that
I should refuse to sign any Report that contained it. I went
on to argue that the common opinion which held that the
marriage of respondent and co-respondent was the one way
to repair a wrong, was humane and right, and that it must be
inhuman and wrong, while permitting them to marry other
persons, to cut them off from the one marriage in which the
presumption was that their affections were engaged. I
painted in somewhat high colours the picture of a man betray-
ing a married woman and leaving her in the lurch. It seemed
to me that these efforts to conciliate would lead us into a
position which would be as repugnant to common feeling
as any of the tabus of our opponents. Sir Frederick Treves
warmly supported me and said that he should follow my exam-
ple if this proposal were persisted in. That day's sitting
ended in some confusion, and I find in my records the copy
of a letter which I addressed to Gorell the next day, saying
that in all the circumstances I might cause him least embarrass-
ment if I withdrew from the Commission. For we
were at deadlock upon another matter, the question of
newspaper reports, upon which, as the one journalist
member of the Commission, I had a special responsi-
bility. My colleagues seemed at that moment to be united
on the closing of the Courts to the Press, but that, as
it turned out, was only a passing phase. Gorell begged
me to continue, intimated that the proposal about the
"guilty parties" would not be pursued and that full oppor-
tunity would be given for further discussion of the question
of reporting.

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That is by no means the simple question that some people
suppose it to be. In fact, it cuts deep into the whole theory
of divorce. When we started our debate again, I produced
a passage from one of Bernard Shaw's Prefaces, in which he
argued that marriage and divorce was a private affair of the
parties in which the public and the newspapers should not
intrude, and I pointed out that the theory of marriage as a con-
tract "in the sight of God and in the face of this Congregation"
in which the public were vitally concerned, required pub-
licity; and that the Court could not be closed without inferen-
tially adopting the view of marriage which regarded it as a
private affair of the parties. The minority had scarcely thought
of this logic of the matter, and the argument, I think, had some
weight. At all events we agreed that a simple closing of the
Court to the newspapers was an impossibility, so long as the
marriage law stood on its present footing and divorce was
held to be a matter concerning the public as well as the parties.
But we could agree upon nothing else. A careful analysis
of reports in the Sunday and daily Press showed that the
Divorce Court was responsible for only a part of the daily
and weekly outpouring of sewage upon the newspaper
reader; and it seemed probable that, if we closed the Divorce
Court, we should merely divert the sewage-farmers to other
sources of an always abundant supply. Unquestionably the
facts revealed in our analysis were a scandal and a nuisance to
decent people, but to devise any way of dealing with them
was extraordinarily difficult. So far as I remember, we
discussed all the plans that have recently been broached, but
all seemed open to serious objection, and not least the plan,
which is embodied in a recent piece of legislation, of confining
the reports to the summing-up and verdict. To make the
summing-up serve the double purpose of a decorous report
to the public and a judicial charge to the jury, to throw on
the judge the onus of deciding which of the parties should
be pilloried and to what extent, and to compel him at each
stage to consider whether the plain-speaking that might be
necessary to the jury would be suitable reading for the public,
seemed to me, and seems to me still, repugnant to legal prin-
ciples, to say nothing of the suspicions to which the judges may
be exposed in performing so very delicate and invidious a task.

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My own solution, embodied in a memorandum attached
to the Majority Report, was to prevent all reporting of divorce
cases until they are concluded. This, I should add, has found
favour with no one, and I can claim no professional support
for it. But I still believe that it would solve a large part of
the problem, and that it may even yet prove an acceptable
alternative to the plan now adopted. It would prevent the
serializing and sensationalizing from day to day, which is the
chief evil of unqualified publicity; it would limit the length of
reports from sheer lack of space on a given day; it would make
going back for salacious detail a rather flagrantly scandalous
proceeding and enlist the vis inertias on the side of decency.
It would leave the newspapers to judge of the degree in which
the penalty of publicity should be inflicted on the parties
instead of throwing that very invidious task upon the judge.
I may add that I should like to give judges a discretion to
postpone reporting until the end of the trial not only in divorce
cases, but in all cases, civil or criminal, in which publicity is
liable to be abused. There are journalists who consider that
any discipline of this kind is an invasion of the liberties of the
Press, and who hold out for an unfettered discretion to give
the public what it wants, as measured by the results in circu-
lation. I feel sure that this is a mistaken view, and that
blind resistance to all discipline accompanied by manifest
abuse of liberty on the part of a section of the Press will one
day lead to a reaction which may seriously threaten the salu-
tary principle of the open law-court. I confess I had much
difficulty in palliating to my colleagues the steady refusal of
the greater part of the Press to admit that the problem was a
serious one or to assist the Commission by offering evidence
about the means of solving it.

Ill

Majority and minority worked amicably together until
the breaking point, which came on the proposed new causes
of divorce (desertion, cruelty, habitual drunkenness, long
terms of penal servitude, insanity), and then we each set about
preparing our own Reports. The minority, while holding

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tenaciously to their principle which barred the new causes,
were otherwise moderate and helpful. They accepted the
Act of 1857 and were prepared for anything which made its
administration fairer or more even between rich and poor.
A few clerical witnesses took the line that they considered
divorce to be such an evil and so repugnant to the law of
God that they were opposed to any reforms which would
bring it within reach of larger numbers. To these the cost
and difficulty of obtaining divorce, and the anomalies of the
law, seemed like providential dispensations for the defence
of marriage, and what we called reform they considered to
be the opening of wider doors to wickedness. The minority
did not take this view; they were wisely and carefully led by
the Archbishop of York, and professed themselves as anxious
as we were to remove injustices or anomalies in the working
of the principles accepted in 1857. The test came in the
proposal to equalize the conditions between the sexes. I had
expected long debates and deep divisions of opinions on this
subject. It raised no new principle for Churchmen, but it
was likely to lead to more new divorces than all the proposed
new causes put together, and if to avoid the increase of
divorces was per se a good thing, the stand would have to be
made here if anywhere. Fortunately the minority took the
view that, divorce having once been permitted on the ground
of adultery, discrimination between the sexes inflicted an
injustice which could not be defended. That settled the
question, so far as the Commission was concerned. The
various man-of-the-world objections simply would not bear
statement, when we came up to them; and the legal view that
it was necessary to deter women from foisting illegitimate
children on their own families, led logically to the conclusion
that it was equally necessary to deter men from foisting them
on other people's families. As I remember it, argument on
this question, on which we had expected the sharpest divisions,
evaporated from the sheer impossibility of stating an arguable
case against equality, and we found ourselves absolutely
unanimous.

It was one of the pleasures of this work to renew intimacy
with my old Balliol friend, the Archbishop of York. He and
I had gone different ways since we left Oxford, but we met

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A ROYAL COMMISSION

again on the old footing and talked on more congenial sub-
jects than the marriage laws in the intervals for lunch. Lang
had had a lawyer's training before he took orders in the
Church of England, and he brought an acute legal mind to
the problems of the Commission. Now and again when
majority and minority had parted company, he came and
sat with the majority and gave them excellent and impartial
advice as to the least objectionable way of applying their
views, assuming these to be unalterable. Sitting on this
Commission was, I imagine, an extremely difficult and delicate
business for an Archbishop, and the rest of us were of opinion
that Lang could scarcely have acquitted himself better.

Gorell wrote the whole of the first draft of the Majority
Report, and I am, therefore, free to pay my tribute to its
masterly statement of law and fact and comprehensive grasp
of the whole subject. Some of us were of opinion that the
phraseology of this draft was in places too technical, and we
thought it would be a gain if it could be somewhat simplified
and, as far as possible, purged of blue-book English. I spent
many hours on this effort, and Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs.
Tennant did the same. We met and pooled our ideas and,
having written them into my draft, I went in some trepidation
and submitted them to Gorell. He was rightly anxious lest
his meaning should have been distorted or legal mistakes have
crept into our revised versions, but in all other respects he
met us with the greatest good humour and modesty. In one
of these inquests on the style of the Report I was able to ease
the situation by confessing my own infirmities in the use of
the English language and showing him a letter from my
father, who claimed to have discovered no less than forty
mistakes of punctuation and syntax in a short volume of Essays
I had lately published.

Shortly after the Welsh Disestablishment Bill was intro-
duced, Morley said to me one day that the "old lady" — by
which he meant the Church of England — "still had a few
kicks in her," and that our shins would be pretty sore before
we had done with that business. The "old lady," as it turned
out, had a good many kicks to spare for the Majority Report
of the Divorce Commission, and she has successfully prevented
the adoption of the greater part of it. A comparatively

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small minority prepared on a given issue to transfer its votes
from party to party has a unique power of intimidating
Governments; and neither Liberal, Coalition, nor Labour
Governments have been willing to touch the question, in face
of the little group of Roman and Anglican Catholics cutting
across parties which has threatened secession on it. Marriage
law reform is, therefore, in much the same position as, say,
woman suffrage in the days before the war, and the sufferers
from the present state of the law are not likely to come into
the open and proclaim their woes, as did the suffragettes.
Yet I think it is still for these opponents to consider whether
they are really maintaining the sanctity of marriage by clinging
to a law which insists on a lifelong formal tie between partners
who are, in fact, separated, which refuses relief to the
deserted wife or husband, and leaves either without remedy
for the incurable intemperance, insanity, or criminality of the
other. The privacy now assured to divorce proceedings in
the Courts has still further eased the position for the well-to-
do, while that part of the law which is especially a hardship
to the poor remains unreformed. The least that can be asked
is that judicial separations, after they have run for a certain
period, should automatically be converted into divorces.
We are in face of a younger generation which does not easily
accept the traditions of Churches or the wisdom of the elders,
when these seem to be out of touch with the common morality,
and it may find ways of reforming the marriage law which
will be extremely disconcerting to the elders.

132

CHAPTER XXX

THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER

The Evening Press in London — Its Former and Present Position —
The Old Penny Evenings — Their Circulation and Their
Influence — Efforts to Balance Accounts — Disinterested
Proprietors.

WHAT has happened to the Press in our time, and why
has it happened? Volumes have been written on
that subject, and I myself have devoted several chapters to it
in another book. Here I will confine myself to my own
experience in the field of London evening journalism.

Before the war there were four penny and two halfpenny
evening papers in London, and a well marked line divided
the penny from the halfpenny. The former catered for the
supposedly educated classes ; the latter appealed to the multi-
tude and made a speciality of sporting news . At the end of the
war the difference in price was obliterated; the pennies which
had gone up to twopence returned to a penny, and the half-
pennies which had gone up to a penny remained there. All
the commercial advantages now fell to those which showed
the largest circulations, and the life of the others became
increasingly difficult and finally impossible. Of the original
penny papers, the Westminster Gazette has been converted
into a morning paper, the Pall Mall Gazette and the Globe
have ceased publication, and the Evening Standard circulates
in the same wide field as its penny contemporaries, the
Evening News and the Star. London, therefore, now has only
three evening papers approximately of the same type, whereas
before the war it had six — and at a still earlier date eight* —

* In addition to the papers above mentioned there were also the Echo and the Sun,

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

of varying types. Much the same process has been at work
in New York, and probably for the same reasons.

This is a phase in the history of journalism which is of
great importance, for it raises the question whether, or how
far, the journalism of opinion can survive under modern
conditions. Perhaps I may throw a little light on that ques-
tion if I try to tell truthfully what happened to the evening
Westminster Gazette.

The point about the old evening penny paper, of which it
was a leading example, was that it was first of all and very
deliberately an "organ of opinion." It put its leading article
on its front page, it made politics its chief concern, and laid
itself out to convert and persuade by its writing. Its readers
bought it quite as much for its views as for its news. Before
the war, and for nearly forty years earlier, either of the great
political parties would have thought it a serious loss not to
be represented by at least one paper of this kind. For such
papers caught the politicians when they were assembled in
the House of Commons, and gave the serious reader something
to think about in his leisure hours — in the clubs when his
working day was over, and at home in the evenings.

But to catch this kind of reader it was necessary to abjure
what is called the popular appeal and to write for him and
for him alone. The appeal, therefore, was deliberately to the
few. The trouble was that they were so very few, as news-
papers reckon numbers. One hardly dare mention the facts
in the hearing of the modern master of circulation, for they
will seem derisory. I cannot verify them all, but something
of this kind is the approximate truth. The original Vail Mall
Gazette, started by George Smith and edited by Frederick
Greenwood, had at the beginning of its existence a circulation
of about 4,000 a night, at its then price of twopence. Under
the influence of a very mild sensation — a series of articles
by James Greenwood on a night spent in a casual ward — it
about doubled this number and gradually ran up to about
9,000. Under John Morley's editorship it reached about
10,000. Under Stead it rose to about 13,000, with a sudden
rise for the period of the "Maiden Tribute" and a serious
reaction afterwards. E. T. Cook, who succeeded Stead,
kept it up to 13,000, and when the Westminster was established

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THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER

to carry on the same tradition, it started at about this level
and remained there for the next three years. In the following
years there was a slight annual increase, until the Boer War,
when it jumped to 25,000 a day. After the Boer War it fell
back to about 20,000, and rose again to about 27,000 during the
Great War. I am speaking of actual sales, minus "returns."

Judged by the standards of the popular Press, these figures
look ridiculous. Yet it will scarcely be denied that Green-
wood and Morley were editors of great influence and that Stead
filled the whole country with the sound of his voice. How
did they do it ? The answer is that they were appealing to
a select audience of politically instructed readers, who in
those days were the makers of opinion, and from whom an
immense influence radiated outwards to the multitude. The
Minister, the M.P., the banker, and the business man all read
them with serious attention. And, above all, the journalists
read them and founded other articles on what they wrote.
There could have been no better audience for the purpose of
what is now called propaganda, and the writers who addressed
it had a direct influence which they could not possibly have
had, if they had been speaking to the multitude.

Considered in this way, the figures were by no means so
discouraging as they looked. If one took the London Blue
Book or Red Book — the directories which were supposed to
contain the names of the educated and fairly well-off — one
found that they contained from 40,000 to 50,000 names.
This was the chief part of the possible circulation of the
newspaper of opinion in London, and about the same
number as was obtained in London by morning papers
of the same character. Outside of these were serious
politicians in all classes; workmen, shopkeepers, earnest
young people attending evening classes and schools,
very important people but, as newspapers judge circulation,
numerically insignificant, and hard to reach without an exten-
sive apparatus of distribution. They were in little pockets all
over London and the country, and could only be supplied by
multiplying carts and running the risk of large numbers of
unsold copies. So long as this kind of newspaper remained
true to its type, its proprietors and editors had to resign
themselves to the conclusion that there were in London only

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

about 100,000 people of all parties and complexions who
would buy it. Indeed, the Liberal proprietor and editor
might consider himself fortunate if he reached 30,000 of these,
and, in order to get them, he had to incur nearly the same
costs in distribution as his neighbours, who were supplying
ten or twenty times that number of papers to the larger public.
The difficulty was to resign oneself to these conditions
and to work steadily within them. When our neighbours
were so evidently expanding, it seemed tame and unenter-
prising not to try to do the same. But if we tried the kind
of "stunt" which would have added 20,000 to 30,000 a day
to the circulation of a popular newspaper, scarcely as many
hundreds would be gathered in. The regular readers were not
amused, and some of them would write to express a modest
hope that the editor of their "favourite paper" would not
misconduct himself in that way again. And if one caught
a few of the others it was only for the night, and they fell
off again the moment they discovered the chronic solemnity
of the paper which had taken them unawares. All through
the years I could hear the groans of the circulation manager
from the room below mine. He was justly convinced that
a different article from that which we were producing upstairs
would appeal to a much larger public, and naturally felt that
we were defeating his purpose in life by our long reviews and
"heavy politics." He was quite right, but we were there to
do what we were trying to do, and if something else was
wanted, the first thing to be done was, as Fisher used to say,
to "sack the lot" of us. Had we been put in charge of a really
popular paper with an up-to-date circulation we could have
been relied upon to kill it in about a fortnight.

And yet I will boldly claim that we were quite efficient at
our own job. So much, at least, I owe to my colleagues, who
were among the most zealous, the most disinterested, and the
most loyal to their paper of any of the men who have worked
together in Fleet Street in recent years. I like to think that
nearly all who were there at the beginning were still there at

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THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER

the end, and that some of them have passed to the morning
Westminster-, and I know that many of them refused tempting
offers to go elsewhere, from pride in the Westminster and
a sense that its proprietors would not treat them capriciously
or unfairly. For their sake even more than my own, it
always irritated me to hear it said that the Westminster was
not a good newspaper, and that it was bought for its articles
and not for its news. This was not flattering to the editor,
and I do not think it was true. I think it was simply due to
the fact that we went to press with our last edition about
half an hour earlier than most of our competitors, which was
vexatious to journalists relying on the last editions of the
evening papers for the very latest news, but of advantage to
our kind of reader, who wanted papers delivered at his house
by six o'clock. This was possibly an unwise economy, since
the reputation of newspapers depends largely on journalists,
but it was not the news staff which was at fault. For many
years it was a regular part of my work to compare the last
edition of the Westminster with the corresponding editions of
its competitors. I seldom found an item of news omitted
except for this cause ; and for the presentment of serious news
in a careful and intelligent way with a proper sense of per-
spective and value, I do not think the Westminster staff was
easily beaten.

But as I write these words I am aware that they are incur-
ably "highbrow." The Westminster did its news, as it did
other things, for its own particular readers, and there were
other readers to whom all its ways seemed flat and heavy.
These others wanted the splash and the headline and the goods
in the shop-window. To a certain extent we conformed to
the fashions. We took the leader from the front page and
put news in its place — result, as usual, a chorus of remon-
strances from the faithful and no new adherents. The faithful
specially hated the modern habit of breaking off at the bottom
of a column on the front page and continuing in the undis-
coverable middle of a column on another page. All the
experts were agreed that this was one of the "notes" of a
really enterprising paper; nearly all the faithful said that it
was a detestable mystification. We could never train them
to any of these novelties; they kicked all the way and said

i37

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

that if we gave them that sort of thing, they would give
us up.

The Westminster had as large a number of readers to each
copy sold as any paper in London, and in all probability it
had about 100,000 readers per night. We hoped that, as the
bulk of these were people of the kind that certain advertisers
most want to get at, they would in time bring a sufficient
advertisement-revenue to balance the deficiency in circulation.
In this we were disappointed. There was a faithful group of
advertisers who gave us a liberal share of their expenditure
and told us that they got a good return on their outlay, but
the majority went after the big circulations, and they must be
presumed to have known their business best. Our maximum
advertisement revenue was about £40,000 a year, and we
wanted £60,000 to balance accounts and make a little profit.
Publishers agreed that we were a good medium, but the small
advertiser of situations vacant or wanted never came our
way; the great display advertisements were reserved for the
big morning sheets; the patent medicine vendors found us
useless. So gradually we discovered that this way out of
our difficulties was past hoping for. The advertisements did
increase, but not so fast as the expenditure. The publication
of their "net circulations" by the popular papers was gradually
killing us.

In the thirty years of its existence, I suppose about
£500,000 was spent on the evening Westminster. Newnes
started with a capital expenditure of £100,000 or more, part
of which was devoted to the equipment of a printing office
which was afterwards detached from the paper. During the
fifteen years that he was proprietor he was out of pocket in
sums varying from £5,000 to £10,000 per annum. There
were one or two years in which we almost balanced accounts,
and I became hopeful that we were going to solve our
problem. But then the competition became more severe,
and the general level of expenditure rose and threw us back.
To hold our own we had to give more pages and increase our
costs all round. When the syndicate of which Sir Alfred
Mond was chairman bought the paper from Newnes, we
tried an arrangement for joint publishing with the Chronicle y
but it did not diminish our losses, which for the next ten

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THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER

years varied between £10,000 and £15,000 a year. Then
when prices soared at the end of the war these figures were
largely increased. With paper at 6d. per lb., instead of id.,
the whole basis was shattered for the time being. By holding
on we might have worked at a loss of about £20,000 a year,
but by that time it was evident that a paper of the type of the
Westminster^ worked as a single enterprise, could not be
profitable in the London area to which the evening news-
paper is confined. The choice, then, was to stop it, to change
it into a different type, or to go out into the larger field which
is open to the morning paper. Lord Cowdray, who by this
time had become chief proprietor, very courageously chose
the third alternative.

Through all the thirty years the proprietors of the
Westminster showed a more than Christian fortitude. When I
was discouraged, they cheered me up, and from none of them
have I ever had a word of complaint. In the last days of his
proprietorship, Newnes was straining his fortunes in sup-
porting the Westminster ', but he never let me see it; he always
told me that he took a pride in the paper and wished no
change that would affect its character. All the others, and
especially Cowdray, who was the largest shareholder, were of
the same disposition. None of them looked for profit, or
ever asked for any favour or advantage for themselves, such
as rich men might be supposed to expect from a newspaper
they financed. They were honestly and generously for the
cause, and would have no lowering of the flag. It is not for
me to say whether the effort was worth while, but I have no
doubt at all that it was a generous and disinterested effort
and that the men who made it deserve the credit due to
public-spirited benefactors.

Is the problem, then, insoluble ? Northcliffe, who always
professed a high regard for the Westminster^ used to say not.
He told me more than once that, if he had it he
would make it pay in six months and (he used to
protest) without altering its character or its politics. I do
not think this was an idle boast. He would have saved the

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

expense of a separate office and distributed the paper through
his existing and far more efficient machinery. He would
have applied his army of canvassers to increasing its circula-
tion ; he would not have sat resignedly and called up a certain
amount of capital to meet an expected loss, but spent freely
for a few months or years in the hope of a future return. I
believe it would be quite possible for the proprietors of one
of the popular papers to run the newspaper of opinion in
connexion with their great circulations and make it pay, but
the question is whether they would resist the temptation of
increasing circulation and profits by changing its character,
until it became merely a duplicate of their other publications.
I cannot answer the question, but it is difficult to believe that
there will be no further experiment in this field. There were
undoubtedly too many of the old type, and they partly killed
each other by a feverish competition for a small public, but
that there should not be room for even one in the greatest
and most populous city in the world is a discouraging thought.
I dream sometimes of a newspaper which shall boldly rely
on quality rather than quantity of circulation and give its
advertisers a guarantee that its numbers shall never exceed
100,000 per day.

My departure from the editorship when the Westminster
became a morning paper was entirely my own act. The report
that I had been ejected or displaced was wholly without
foundation. When the change was made, the proprietors
showed their usual forbearance and were willing to make
everything easy for me, if I would continue in charge of the
much larger venture which they now had in mind. In fact
it was I who seemed to desert them, not they who wished to
dispense with my services. It caused me much searching of
heart, and when the change was made in November, 1921, I
decided to go to Washington as special correspondent of the
new morning paper at the Disarmament Conference, partly
that I might have time to think over the situation quietly.
My conclusion was that my experience on the old Westminster
was no qualification for the editorship of a morning paper
seeking a large circulation all over the country, and that, if
I undertook it, I should be cut off from the greater part of the
writing work for which I felt myself best qualified. This

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THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER

decision, was, I think, in the interests of the proprietors, but
it is a pleasure to me to think that after thirty-four years I
am still serving under the old flag, though another is on the
bridge.

As I finish this chapter, my eye catches the advertisement
of a modern evening paper, which states that it is spending
on one development a sum of money which, if invested at
the present rate of interest, would have maintained the old
evening Westminster during the whole period of its existence
and have been intact at the end.

141

CHAPTER XXXI

AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

Different Ways of Editing — Seeing Callers — Instructing an Editor
— Inventors and their Schemes — The Highest Explosive in
the World — The Westminster Competitions — Latin and Greek
Verse — Miss Royde Smith and Her Team — Lord Curzon's
Contributions — Beautiful Words — Reviewing and Reviewers —
Theatrical Criticism and Its Difficulties — Criticism and Adver-
tising— Cricket and Epithets.

THIS is a chapter of memories and reflections which come
into my mind as I look back over the years spent in
editing the old evening Westminster. They are without order
or sequence, and some of them, I am afraid, may seem remote
from present times.

I abhor what is commonly called editing, i.e. the cutting,
trimming, and correcting of other people's writings to make
them conform to one's own ideas. I dislike having it done
to my own work, and I did as little as possible of it to other
people's. Among the principal contributors to the evening
Westminster were men who were eminent and distinguished as
literary craftsmen and, forbearing as they were, I knew that
they would greatly prefer their work to appear as they pro-
duced it than as improved by me. Even when cutting was
peremptory, it seemed best to ask them to do it themselves,
whenever possible, for more good articles are ruined by the
unintelligent cutting of editors and sub-editors than readers
are at all aware. Still more did this rule apply to captions
and other embellishments. I did once, I remember, venture
to put what are called "sub-heads" into an article by a dis-
tinguished woman writer which, though a masterpiece of its

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

kind, did seem to me to need just that amount of relief to the
reader. This brought me the deserved and expected rebuke
on a post card from Italy : "What unspeakable office-boy has
been laying his obscene paw on my writing ?" Now and
again I might alter a sentence or a phrase which seemed to
me to be open to misconstruction or to say something else
than the writer intended, but the writers had, I think, a
reasonable certainty that their articles would appear as they
wrote them.

In what then, it may be asked, does editing consist? The
answer is, mainly in the choice of writers and of the subjects
assigned to them. If a writer did not conform to the general
spirit of the paper, it always seemed to me useless to try to
subdue him to it. A newspaper, as it goes on, develops a
kind of collective character which may in some ways be dif-
ferent from the character of those contributing to it, but
which influences them all, if they are amenable to the influence.
It is this character which the editor has to guard and cultivate,
and he must be very careful that it is not broken or blurred
by the intrusion of alien elements. Many times I have had
intimations that certain distinguished writers would be willing
to contribute to the Westminster ', if I would invite them, and
yet I have refrained from doing so, not because I failed to
appreciate their work, but because I felt that they were not
of our pattern and could not be bent to it. And for the same
reason I have quietly dropped out very clever contributors
who seemed to strike a jarring note. If explanations were
asked for, they were frankly given, but more often they were
not asked. It seemed to me fair to assume that a contributor
had taken the trouble to study the paper to which he was
sending his contributions, and that he would of his own
accord try to make his contributions fit into its style and
character. But a considerable number of would-be contri-
butors seemed to send the same manuscript to half a dozen
newspapers, regardless of whether it conformed to the charac-
ter or even the known opinions of any one of them. It was
always a relief to get a contribution marked for a certain place,
of the right length for that place, and dealing with a subject
which was already running. The contributors I cursed were
those who invited me to shorten or correct their compositions.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

A difficulty which specially besets the writing editor is
that of finding time to see the callers who besiege a news-
paper office. At the old Pall Mall offices, in Northumberland
Street, Stead started seeing callers the moment after he had
finished his leader, and went on seeing them till four in the
afternoon. There was no one he would not see, especially
no woman, and almost invariably he took at least one of his
visitors off to lunch with him lest the flow of talk should cease
for even one hour. All the cranks in the world must have
passed through that office, but Stead delighted in cranks and
they in him; and thanks to his capacity of dictating at incredi-
ble speed he could overtake his work at the end of the day.
I found it impossible to follow his example, and had finally
to limit myself, as a rule, to callers by appointment between
a quarter past twelve and a quarter past one. I learnt in
after years that I was much blamed for this, and perhaps justly,
for a journalist, of all men, should be a patient listener. The
pains that zealous people will take to instruct an editor deserve
at least this reward. I can see them now, men and women,
especially women, sitting opposite me, methodically opening
bags and pouches, spreading out papers and proceeding to
expound — first, second and thirdly, etc. — and leaving me
finally with a mass of documents which I was to digest at my
leisure. They came from all over the world, and now and
again gave one extraordinarily interesting stuff, but life is
short and the exponents of "causes" are generally very long.
Often I begged for mercy and entreated them to write down in
twenty lines just what they wanted me to say, and promised
that I would try to say it (if only they would go away).

Among the callers was a goodly number of inventors,
some of them bringing models and plans which always fas-
cinated me, though I was totally incompetent to judge of their
merits. One morning about 1903, Sir Hiram Maxim was
announced and, having seated himself opposite me, took
what looked like a large cylinder of chocolate out of a bag
and placed it on the table in front of me. "This," he said,

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

"is the highest explosive in the world and I will now proceed
to put a match to it." I knew just enough about explosives
to know that they do not explode that way, so I watched with
composure while he struck a match and set the cylinder
mildly sizzling. He then expounded its properties and the
way it exploded and his free handling of it did, I confess,
cause me a slight flutter. It was reassuring to remember that
he was there as well as I. Having finished his exposition,
he got up to go and I went with him to the door and saw him
off the premises with a certain sense of relief. But on return-
ing to my room I found that he had left the "highest explosive
in the world" on my table. What was I to do ? I couldn't
pass it on to the office-boy, and obviously I couldn't leave it
there. I had heard — and I hope it is true — that explosives
are rendered harmless by being put in water, so after reflecting
on the problem, I wrapped the cylinder in paper and, taking
it with me, went on to the Embankment, and slipping down
the stairs by Blackfriars Bridge, deposited it cautiously in
the river. To my immense relief it sank and I saw it no more.
I hope I did right, but at all events I did my best. Even now
I can feel the sense of guilt with which I sidled along the
Embankment, and the enormous care I took not to collide
with anyone. What sort of story would have been told if I
had bumped into an innocent passer-by and we had both gone
to heaven, I dare not conjecture.

Ill

A German who wrote a series of articles on English life
somewhere about 1910, said that one of the oddest things he
had observed in our country was a London newspaper running
a regular competition in Latin and Greek verse. Upon this
he founded certain observations on our national character
and its aptitude for scholarship which seemed to me at the
time to generalize rather rashly. The paper alluded to was
the Westminster Gazette, which, for twenty years, in its Satur-
day and afterwards in its weekly edition, offered the modest
prize of two guineas every fortnight for the best version of
a set passage of English poetry into some Greek or Latin

14?

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

metre. Fleet Street always laughed at this, but, even from
the Fleet Street point of view, it was not bad business. It
brought the Westminster into touch with the public schools
and schoolmasters, and caused lively debates in Oxford and
Cambridge Common Rooms. All through the twenty years
that it lasted this competition was conducted by H. F. Fox,
then tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford, an old friend of
mine, and a fine scholar, who is unhappily no longer on the
scene. The one difficulty was that the versions became
rapidly so good as to scare all but the best performers out of
the field. Again and again, to name only one competitor,
F. W. Pember, Warden of All Souls, produced versions that
were unsurpassable. Fox set his face against all mechanical
versions constructed out of phrase-books, and did not a little,
I think, to encourage literary merit as distinct from mere
ingenuity in these exercises.

But the Latin and Greek versions were only a small part
of the literary competitions of the Saturday Westminster.
These for many years were conducted by Miss Royde Smith
(now Mrs. Ernest Milton), who has since made a reputation
for herself as a writer of novels and a theatrical critic. There
were always three prizes offered, and the prize versions and
awards generally filled two pages. An occasional appeal was
made to me at difficult moments, but my share in it was so
small that I can express an unbiased opinion without flatter-
ing myself. It seems to me still, as I look back on it, the
cleverest thing of the kind ever produced from a newspaper
office. All the banalities common to such things were
avoided; the editor took her competitors over steeper and
steeper fences, and they followed undaunted wherever she
led. They poured out prose and poetry to any model and
in any metre; they produced epigrams and aphorisms by the
thousand; they were as ready with parodies as with epitaphs,
and gave equally when she asked for pathos and for bathos.
She snubbed and cuffed them, and they took it lying down, and
only promised to do better next time. Sometimes I cried
out for mercy and begged for a theme which would save
aching heads from sleepless nights, but she knew them better
than I did and kept them at it with whip and spur. The
English are supposed to be unliterary, but the impression I

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

got was that there never could in any country at any time have
been a cleverer group of young people than for twenty years
or so were deployed on this page.

Young people they mostly were, and not a few who have
since made great reputations were regular and zealous con-
tributors. But a good many seniors chopped in from time
to time, and among these I remember especially Lord Curzon,
who in his busiest times would find an hour or two to try his
hand with the rest. The competition editor was no respecter
of persons — nothing would have prevented her from gulfing
the poet laureate, had she thought him undeserving — and
once, I think, Curzon "suffered some wrong," as Browning
says of Guercino. But he, too, took it as gaily as the rest,
and continued to send highly accomplished versions of
French poems which honestly won on their merits. Many
of my own literary friends used shyly to confess that
they, too, had ventured, but with results that were
humbling to pride. Through it all I watched keenly
for likely contributors to the daily Westminster and got
not a few that way.

Now and again I pleaded for a competition which would
rope in the multitude, and in answer to one of these pleas,
the editor invited her contributors to name "the most beau-
tiful word in the English language." Beautiful words
poured in by the thousand, and the normal letter-bag was
increased by three. The competition editor called for help,
and coming upon the scene at the critical moment when a
choice simply had to be made, I found her and an eminent
literary man, whom she had asked to advise her, in a state
of despair. The question had been put, but no one till that
moment had thought of the answer, and there were a thousand
answers equally good or bad. They said that on the whole
they were inclined to the word "Swallow" — did I agree and
would I stand the racket ? I said I must know first whether
they meant the bird or the thing you did with your throat,
whereat the competition dissolved in laughter, and we
decided to carry it off with a learned disquisition on the
meaninglessness of words apart from their associations.
This, I think, was the last time I proposed a popular competi-
tion for that page.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

The editors of the great morning papers delegate the
reviewing of books (or the supervision of it) to "Literary-
editors," but I was never in a position to do that, nor did I
wish to. It was, nevertheless, a very serious part of the daily
work, and it presented problems to which there was no solu-
tion. Almost every novice who came with an introduction
to the editor suggested that he or she should be given books
to review, but I was generally adamant about this. Review-
ing, contrary to the general belief, is one of the most difficult
and exacting of all the tasks committed to the journalist,
and is seldom done well except by those who have both
knowledge and experience. The newspaper reviewer has
to be both readable and fair; he needs taste and judgment
and sufficient but not too much knowledge. To give a book
to an expert was generally a perilous experiment. The expert
over-wrote his space, often failed to make himself intelligible
to the vulgar, and sometimes had a bias which was fatal to
fairness. There are no such enemies as hostile experts on
the same subject, and it was a wise rule for a non-technical
journal only to employ them as reviewers when they were
known to be good writers and fair-minded men.

Even in those days (and still more I suppose in these) the
books that came pouring in during the publishing seasons
were an endless perplexity. Those by established authors
were picked out and reviewed as a matter of course, but
these were comparatively few, and rows upon rows remained,
all apparently with equal claims. How pick out those that
were worth reviewing or had in them the spark of genius or
originality which deserved to be encouraged? Publishers
in those days wanted the largest number of books noticed,
but since space was limited this meant short reviews, which
the reader disliked. What the Westminster reader wanted
was an intelligible account of a book coupled with serious
criticism running to at least half a column, and on fit occasions
a good deal more. To give him this was our aim, but it
required us to ignore two-thirds of the books published, and
even then the arrears of unpublished reviews mounted up,

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

until some were sadly belated and others had to be extin-
guished altogether. Moreover, in spite of the utmost care,
there was no denying that books 01 great merit were over-
looked or inadequately handled.

The perfect solution would have been to employ a literary
taster of all-round competence with a liberal salary, whose
business it would have been simply to select from the mass
the books deserving serious treatment. This was impossible,
as we were situated, and a certain haphazardry was inevitable.
The difficulty was the greater because, according to the
almost universal practice of the trade in these days, the
reviewers were paid by the amount they turned out, which
meant that if a critic wrote a short review, after putting him-
self to the trouble of reading a long book, or still more, if he
decided it was not worth reviewing at all, he got nothing for
his pains. The result of this was that many of the men and
women most competent for this work quitted criticism as
soon as they found more remunerative work, and that among
those who persisted were a considerable number who were in
a position to take it lightly as an occupation of their own
spare time. I had frequent applications from unknown peo-
ple who offered to do reviewing gratis for the sake of getting
the books.

I am speaking of conditions as they were in the pre-war
days, and I hope they have changed since then. I still think
with a certain remorse of the admirable and distinguished
work done by the reviewers of the old Westminster — writers
of the first-class like William Archer, Churton Collins, Walter
de la Mare, J. D. Beresford, Middleton Murry, J. A. Blaikie
and others — and the small reward they got for it. These
were men whose sense of literary fitness would never let
them spin words to make pennies, and I knew absolutely that
with them the merits of the books were everything. But
among normal bread- winning human beings it was impossible
to expect the best work under such conditions, and it was
perhaps more surprising that the general average was so high
than that there should have been a certain amount of bad
and scamped work. I should like to see the assessment of
writing by quantity abolished for all journalists, but if review-
ers cannot be paid by salary they should be fairly remunerated

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

for time spent, even if the result is, as it very often should
be, insignificant when measured in space.

In theatrical criticism the old Westminster was excep-
tionally fortunate. I suppose the present generation of
theatre-goers has forgotten the ringing controversies about
the notices of E. F. S. (E. F. Spence), a critic of rare acumen,
whose courage and honesty made him respected and, I must
add, feared by authors, actors and managers. Spence had an
enterprising mind which followed sympathetically the new
movement going forward under the influence of Ibsen and
Shaw, but he struggled manfully to do justice between the new
playwrights and the old and paid his tribute to good work-
manship wherever found. He was, however, the sworn foe
of the cheap and pretentious, and he waged incessant warfare
against certain popular favourites, whether authors, actors,
or managers, who seemed to him to be debasing public taste.
There was, of course, retaliation, and for long periods certain
managers withdrew their advertisements, and refused to send
tickets for first-nights to the Westminster. Again and again
the advertisement manager came to me pulling a long face
and saying that a certain notice of Spence's had cost the
proprietors £200 a year. Hardly less important complaints
came from readers that the Westminster list of theatres was
imperfect, and that they had been compelled for that reason
to buy other papers. It seemed to me of real importance that
Spence should be well-backed in these encounters, and I am
glad to say that the proprietors of the Westminster invariably
took the same view. In a sense there was right on both sides.
We could not complain when a manager said he was not
going to advertise in a paper which damaged his enterprises —
and Spence's notices did, I think, materially damage some
enterprises — but on the other hand, it was evident that a
serious critic could not do his duty if he was asked to con-
sider the possible commercial results of an honest judgment.

We never asked Spence to consider them, and seldom or
never reported these incidents to him except when the

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

withdrawal of a ticket compelled us to do so. In that case we
fought for the principle that the exclusion of the critic on the
first night could not debar criticism then or any other night,
and, if we thought criticism worth while, we procured it by
one means or another. It was a long and often a stubborn
fight, but persistence generally won. In the end the economic
fact was revealed that the theatre-manager did not advertise
to please us or the critic, and that it was not worth his while
to be off the theatre list on the front page of a paper which
was largely read by well-to-do theatre-goers because he had
a quarrel with the critic. It is this commercial aspect of
advertising which is or ought to be the guarantee of the critic,
whether theatrical or literary. The good critic makes a clien-
tele for his paper which is valuable to the advertiser, but he
can only make it if he is allowed the liberty of slating the
advertiser's goods. This is the only condition on which the
Press can render any permanent service to the producers
either of books or of plays. If a newspaper is supposed
to be under the influence of its advertisers, it rapidly ceases —
in this sphere at all events — to be of value as an "advertising
medium."

As an editor I was in more scrapes with writers, actors
and playwrights than with all the politicians put together.
The critics were always falling on my particular friends when
they wrote plays or books or painted pictures, and the victims
held me as guilty as if I myself had been the assassin. It was
only less bad when their works were overlooked or dismissed
in a paragraph, for this also was thought to be a deliberate
slight. These incidents were remembered long after I had
forgotten them, and some of them, as my letter-bag still
shows, went rankling down the years. Nor did the pro-
prietors escape. A rich man who rashly bought a newspaper
told me that he was prepared for trouble with politicians, but
that he had no idea what he was letting himself in for among
his literary and artistic friends. As a matter of fact, politicians
seldom gave trouble. It was a regular part of their trade to
give and receive blows, and most of them greatly preferred

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

being attacked to being passed in silence. Nor did painters
or musicians make much trouble ; most of them seemed to be
buoyed up with an inward conviction that the critic who
found fault with their work was incapable of understanding
their art. But the writers were always on edge, and the least
word seemed to give them pain.

This sensitiveness about the art of putting words together
must be taken as a root fact in human nature. Even the
journeyman knows it. An opponent may tear your argu-
ment to pieces or assail your character and leave you unmoved,
but if he questions your style or says that you write badly
he always inflicts a wound. I remember once, when a certain
correspondence between two literary men was dragging a
weary length on a technical point, saying in despair to one
of them, "Why don't you go for his style?" My advice was
taken, and the thing blazed at once into a cheerful bonfire of
recrimination. Whether the style be the man or not, every
writer knows that his character is at stake when this issue is
raised, and very few have the complete conviction of their
own righteousness which enables the painter or the musician
to smile blandly in the face of the critic. I may add that the
impeachment of a man's style needs to be conducted with great
circumspection, for it is one of the fatalities of the English
language that a writer hardly ever succeeds in correcting
another writer without himself committing a solecism which
exposes him to immediate retaliation. Again and again that
has been the experience of the newspaper correspondents
who rush into print on these occasions, and an editor who
knows his business will always refrain from spoiling sport by
correcting the corrector's correction.

The evening Westminster^^ not supposed to be a sporting
paper, and it never admitted the tipster to its columns or did
more than record the results and the odds in racing. But in
the days when golf was still in the stage of being imported
from Scotland to England, that great golfer and versatile
writer, Horace Hutchinson, wrote a weekly article on it,
which was afterwards expanded to include field-sports. We
also took great pains with cricket and Rugby football — the
two other games which we thought most likely to interest our
readers — and, if memory serves me, were first in the field in

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AN EDITOR'S WORKS AND DAYS

engaging well-known cricketers to write regularly on the game.
For many years P. F. Warner did this work for us, and was
afterwards followed by A. G. Faulkner, who is still, I am glad
to say, doing it for the morning Westminster. I often tried to
persuade Warner to give us a faithful account of one of his
own innings with a study of the problems he had to meet and
a running comment on the bowling. But modesty stood in
the way, and he never would do it. Even in those days feeling
ran high in the news-room about the performances of cricket-
ers, especially when test matches were on foot, and seeing one
day a Westminster poster proclaiming "Disgraceful Collapse
of England," I wrote and pinned up in the news-editors' room
this little notice : — -

Epithets imputing moral obliquity must not be applied to cricketers
when they fail to score.

This, as later experience has proved, is a counsel of perfection.
In the great debate on the conduct of test matches which took
place in 1921, the moral judgment was, as the poet Words-
worth says, "deeply interfused"; and we seemed to be engaged
in one of those searching controversies between right and
wrong, reform and reaction, which from time to time shake
the world. It is, perhaps, the glory of this great game that it
has this unique capacity of appealing to first principles.

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CHAPTER XXXII

THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

The Impulse to Write — The Journeyman and His Tools — Rapid
Writing and Its Conditions — Providing Daily Bread — The
Mechanics of Leader-writing — The "We" of Journalism — A
Cut into Debate — How to Keep Continuity — Certain Little
Rules — A Model Controversialist — The Seven Devils of the
Writer.

THE impulse to write is one of the mysteries of human
nature. It is, so far as one can judge, prior to
and independent of the thing to be written, a sort of machine
inside one constantly demanding to be provided with raw
material, and racking one with its racing when it is not so
provided. I felt the machine going inside me at a compara-
tively early age, and remember still a desperate attempt, when
I was about fifteen, to produce an essay in the style of one
of Mr. Gladstone's Bulgarian Atrocity pamphlets. The fact
that I had nothing to say did not in the least deter me; the
effort kept the machine fed and gave relief. In the atmosphere
in which I was brought up, this seemed perfectly natural.
My mother wrote; my father spent most of his spare time in
writing; journalists and novelists were scattered all over the
family. Not to feel the impulse was an abnormality in our
family, and my mother became anxious when it did not appear,
or was slow in appearing, in any of our family.

To me all my life the pen has been a tool for the day's
work, and never the aesthetic instrument with which the
artist makes prose or poetry. The art of writing is interesting
to the humblest of literary journeymen, and I will not pretend
that I did not and do not take an interest in it. But from the
beginning circumstances drove me to the kind of writing in

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THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

which the thing to be said overshadows the way of saying it,
and the writer must think himself happy if he can say com-
petently what he has to say in a given space and time. This
kind of writing does not concern students and critics, but it
is the necessary pursuit of a great many people, and having
practised it for forty-three years, I am tempted to say some-
thing about it.

I have written, I suppose, about 11,000 leading articles,
and, including special articles and book-reviews, I had a
weekly output of from twelve to fifteen thousand words for
many years of my life. This meant that I spent about four
hours a day, on the average, in the actual work of writing,
the rest of an average day of nine hours — often stretched to
ten — being given to editing and correspondence. I had
several incapacities. I never could dictate anything but
formal letters ; I could not use a fountain pen without ruining
it in two days ; I was, except under the spur of necessity, a
slow writer. I have been surprised in later years to hear
myself described as among the quickest writers in Fleet
Street, for I have seldom or never felt that sense of rapid,
movement which sends the pen flying over the paper. By
long practice and with the aid of a relay of very soft pencils
and rough-faced copy paper, I did generally manage to get
the i, 200- word leading article of the old Westminster Gazette
finished within the allotted time of an hour and a quarter.
But only the inexorable clock and knowledge of the disaster
which would follow, if I failed, made this possible, and I
still remember the dreadful occasions when the manager
brought me lists of trains lost through my hesitations over a
phrase.

All such writing depends on realizing the conditions and
working within them. It would be atrocious to suggest to a
literary artist that he should make one phrase do, when he
might find a better, but this is often hard necessity for the
writer against time. Actually the best chance of getting
through this kind of writing creditably is not to approach
it in a literary frame of mind. In this kind the hardest-worked
cliche is better than a phrase that fails, and no journeyman
should go out of his way to avoid the commonplace unless
he is quite sure that he has something better to substitute

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L2

LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

for it. This may seem a plea for what is called journalese,
but it is in reality the opposite. Journalese results from the
efforts of the non-literary mind to discover alternatives for
the obvious, where none are necessary, and it is best avoided
by the frank acceptance of even a hard-worn phrase when it
expresses what you want to say. The leader-writer has always
to remember that he is expected to provide daily -bread and
not confectionery. He must therefore aim at a certain
homeliness and simplicity, and be very sparing of the orna-
ments and tricks of style which glitter for a day and then
weary, and finally exasperate. My only form of penance,
when engaged in daily leader-writing, was occasionally
to look back over the files to discover if I was falling into the
habit of repeating some word or phrase, or putting on some
frill which after a little wearing became vanity. This, I
think, is good discipline. Almost all writers fall uncon-
sciously into the habit of working certain words to death, and
nearly all would be the better if occasionally they spent an
hour or two with a dictionary to discover what quite service-
able words they are neglecting. One makes astonishing
discoveries in this way, and for the journeyman who wishes
to replenish his much-worn stock, I know of nothing more
useful.

The old Westminster article was written on small slips of
paper, each of which, when finished, went straight to the
printer. It had to be written exactly to fit the allotted space
and so written as not to need more than the smallest amount
of correction, since "overrunning" at the last moment might
wreck the time-table. This required the knack of remember-
ing exactly what one had written and writing by a sort of
instinct to scale — tricks easily unlearnt and rather difficult
to pick up again even at the end of a short holiday. To
complicate matters, the editor-writer was always liable to
interruption even in the sacred seventy-five minutes assigned
to the leading article. Proofs came down from above in an
unceasing stream, some specially marked for the editor's
eye and requiring instant attention. Letters came, and some-
times even callers, claiming urgency, had to be seen. One's
mind was constantly being switched off and having to be
switched on again. I remember George Moore calling one

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THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

day and asking me about the conditions under which the
Westminster leaders were written. When I told him he threw
up his hands and declared writing in such circumstances to be
either impossible or miraculous. As a matter of fact, I
always found it much harder to write out of the office than
in it. On the rare occasions on which a leader was written in
the evening at home, it took about twice the time without any
conscious dawdling. In the office necessity acted as a spur;
one was caught up into the morning whirl; even the noise of
machinery below one, incessantly (and as it often seemed
unnecessarily) winding paper, preparatory to printing, con-
tributed something to the state of mind in which journalism
is produced. Even now I can work through almost any noise
or interruption. Those who come into my room when I am
at work apologize politely, but they could come and go out
without my knowing it, if they did not draw attention to
themselves by apologizing.

But I do not mean for a moment to suggest that a journalist
should always write at the top of his speed or in this whirl.
He must be able to do it, when necessary, but, like other
writers, he had far better take all the time there is, when there
is time. No time is wasted on writing, and if I were asked
to advise a young writer going into journalism, I should tell
him that he could not expect to do even passing well when
called upon to write quickly, unless he was prepared to spend
a great deal of time on writing slowly. I was often asked
why I took upon myself to do so much other writing, when
I had the daily leader on my hands. The answer was that I
could not have done the daily leader continuously with even
passable credit, if I had not done the other writing. Incessant
absorption in political argument without change of subject
dulls you for politics and makes writing flat and rhetorical.
Incessant writing at high speed needs all the time to be
corrected by writing at low speed. Three hours should be
spent on fifteen hundred words to atone for every thousand
produced in an hour. This may be a counsel of perfection
for a busy man, but it should nevertheless be aimed at, for

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

there is no other way in which the quick journalistic writer
can keep touch with the art and craft of writing.

The "we" of journalism is a sad trouble to the leader-
writer, and to live on comfortable terms with it a large part
of his art. There is a great deal of misunderstanding about
that "we," and it is generally supposed to be a pompous
assumption invented by the newspapers for their greater
glory. And true enough what "we" write is at times so
bumptious and pretentious that no self-respecting "I" could
be induced to put his name to it. But this is not generally
the fault of the journalist, who, as a rule, is far more conscious
than other people of the absurdities which "we" is called
upon to perpetrate. To the journalist this form is a sort of
protective colouring which enables him to do his day's job
without perpetually foisting himself on the public. It is, I
think, the only form in which the daily writing of leading
articles by one individual is possible, at all events in this
country. If I, for instance, had written my articles in the
first person, and signed my name at the bottom of them, I
should not have survived six months, let alone twenty-six
years. Such pontificating, such liberties with other people,
such airs as the daily dose of political criticism necessarily
requires could not be tolerated from one individual for more
than a few weeks at a stretch. The occasional writer, the
specialist, the critic may safely sign his name, but the daily
journalist who has to appear every day with exhortation and
rebuke will have a very short life, unless he veils his face.
After all, even the most eminent of public men has to be spar-
ing of his platform appearances, lest the public tire of him
and the newspapers cease to report him. Again and again
when readers have written to complain that certain writers
were boring them, I have asked the writers to take a pseu-
donym, but otherwise to go on as before. Then the people
who had complained would write and congratulate me on
having taken their advice, and say how greatly they preferred
the new writer to the old.

Nevertheless, to use "we" sparingly and skilfully, to be
ready with ways round it and out of it, and, in spite of it, to
get some colour and personality into his writing, are among
the chief accomplishments of the leader-writer. Merely to

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THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

use it correctly needs constant watchfulness. During the
war I have more than once found myself writing a sentence
in which "we" successively did duty for myself (the writer),
for the Allies and for the British people. This is a frequent
cause of confusion and irritation to the reader.

Ill

Style apart, the main point to remember about the leading
article is that it is just a cut into the everlasting debate which
is everywhere going on in the normal human society. The
leader-writer must live in a world of debate and be ready to
strike in at any opening that the day presents to him. If he
cannot do this, he may be an essayist or a philosopher, but he
is not a journalist. It is positively a vice to bring a prepared
mind tc this kind of writing, and if any journalist tells you
that he knows what he is going to write about to-morrow, you
may have serious doubts about his capacity for writing it.
Never to do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow, and
never to think to-day of what you may have to write to-morrow,
are the first rules of safety and sanity in this profession. On
any other terms the life of the daily writer would be an intoler-
able worry and anxiety. The panic about finding subjects
which afflicts novices is the most groundless of all to a man
with the controversial mind. Looking back over forty years,
I can remember about ten days in the depths of the holiday
season when one was really gravelled for something to write
about, and then one launched some fad kept up the sleeve for
this rare occasion. On three days out of the six there never
was any doubt as to what should be the subject of the front-
page leading article; on two days there was a possible choice
between two subjects, and on the remaining day there was
an overflow from the others which clamoured for its chance.
The debater always wants the last word, and leader-writing
is a perpetual chase for the opportunity of saying it.

To be writing every day on these terms for a critical and
highly intelligent audience was an extraordinary pleasure,
and I look back on it as one of the happiest opportunities that
a man in my profession could have had in his working life.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

I tried to keep through it all a certain continuity of ideas, but
the daily debate softened the solemnity of that process and
kept one in a pleasant ferment of minor incidents and per-
sonalities. How keenly one read the newspapers for the little
slips and absurdities, the something they didn't intend to
say, perpetrated by even the wisest of politicians, and happily
provided in abundance by lesser men ! These gave one the
opening without which the article would have been a dis-
quisition and not a contribution to debate; and one of the
drawbacks of the abbreviated reporting of these times is that
they so often pass unrecorded. At the Westminster we were
always on the hunt for them, and when I failed, there was the
eagle eye of Charles Geake, who missed nothing. It was
one of the great advantages of writing for an evening paper,
that instead of having to pick up your material from proof,
"flimsy" and "tape," you had the whole scene laid out for you
in the morning papers, and what one paper had omitted could
be made good from the others.

I had certain little rules for myself which may or may not
be useful for others. One was to make my language most
moderate when my views were most extreme. Follow this
and you may earn a reputation for sobriety and moderation
while steadily expounding the most subversive views. The
reputation which the Westminster had for moderation was
most serviceable, and enabled it to advocate left-wing Radi-
calism as if it were the normal creed of the sensible and
moderate people who read it. Another rule was to write
at least three articles in succession on any subject on which I
wished specially to air my views. For our readers a moderate
dose constantly repeated was far better than a strong dose
administered once. I am struck in reading newspapers to-day
with the frequent changes in the subjects of their principal
leading articles. Apparently the public is supposed to want
the same variety in the leading articles as it undoubtedly
demands in its news. This, I am sure, is a mistake, if the
object is to influence opinion. The psychological approaches
to news and opinion are two different things ; and if a news-
paper takes up a subject with apparent earnestness and con-
viction and then drops it or only returns to it after many
days, the reader is checked and disappointed. I have seen

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THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

eyebrows go up among the staff when I have told them that
I was going to write on the same subject on a fourth or fifth
day, but I think I was right. This was what the serious
reader wanted, and my business was to provide it.

Another littie rule which H. G. Wells taught me through
a parody in one of his novels which had an uncomfortable
resemblance to a Westminster leading article, was to be very
sparing of the word "however." One flies to "however"
when one has exhausted "but." An example lies before me :
"It is easy to show where Mr. Baldwin is wrong, but the
weakness of the Opposition lies in its inability to produce
something better. The Opposition, however, has something
to say for itself," etc. One may trail on indefinitely in this
way, with "buts" and "howevers" balancing and qualifying,
until the reader is muddled and the point fogged, if there
ever was a point. The writers of books love this style, and
in the ampler space of the chapter or the volume may some-
times pull it right. But to qualify qualifications is fatal in
the short space of the leading article, and I found that by
banishing "however" I not only helped myself to say what I
wanted to say at the first intention, but braced and tightened
the whole structure of an article. I never had a more service-
able short lesson in the art of writing, and if Wells has
forgotten it, I should like to recall it to him.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but I have learnt
more of the art of controversial writing from John Henry
Newman than from any other English writer. Among the
Victorians he is the supreme controversialist with the pen.
No one surpasses him in the softness of his approach to a
hostile audience or the neatness and finish of his attack when
he has gained his footing. No one is so deft in quoting an
opponent — one of the most difficult of all the journalistic
arts— or more deadly in reply with so little offence. The
Introduction to the Apologia (of course, in the original and
not in the subsequent expurgated editions) is a masterpiece of
controversial writing and may be read again and again with
profit by those who have to debate with their pens. New-
man's theology never gripped me and I stumbled over the
major premises of his arguments, but if these were granted,
his method was fascinating and his style compelling. He is,

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of course, beyond imitation, but he is one of the few writers
of genius who do not infect with the itch to imitate, and the
journeyman of letters may learn from him without presumption.

It is a common belief that writing becomes easier by prac-
tice, but that is not the experience of most writers. In one's
sanguine moments one may hope that it becomes better, but
it certainly does not become easier. At the end of one's life,
one sweats blood over it as at the beginning. With the
necessity of producing a given portion in a given time relaxed,
the sense of the difficulty of it is even increased. Now you
are at liberty to tear up and rewrite — a thing undreamt of
by the journeyman — and you discover that you may do this
half a dozen times and be no nearer the perfect expression of
which you dream. Formerly there was a swift and merciful
oblivion for yesterday's portion, and the necessity of going on
saved you from the mortification of looking back ; now there
is the vexation of seeing in "book form" the clumsy para-
graphs, the ill-constructed chapters, the defeated attempts to
express simply some quite simple idea. The esprit d'escaliery
which the journalist can always satisfy in to-morrow's article,
becomes a teasing demon to the writer of books. The thing
is no sooner finished than you think how much better you
could do it, if you could begin all over again, with the know-
ledge and experience that you have at the end. Journalism
you could turn on and off, and be as light-hearted about what
you would write to-morrow as about what you wrote yes-
terday; but a book never leaves you when once you are
embarked on it. The material, the construction, the stubborn
passages, even certain epithets and phrases follow you about
and will not be driven away. I do not know how it is with
great and imaginative writers, but a pedestrian, like myself,
feels more and more as he grows older the difficulty of pre-
venting the mechanism quenching the thought. He feels,
as he sits down to the daily task, certain things coming on,
so to speak; the thumping antithesis, the rhetorical flourish,
the otiose adjective, the pseudo-picturesque metaphor — these
and other seven devils all bent on defeating his effort to see
and say the thing as it is.

Yet with it all there is no other life which a man who
really has the impulse could wish to lead or, indeed, is fitted

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THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE JOURNALIST

to lead. And journalism does to a large extent cure its arti-
ficiality by compelling the journalist to use his pen as a mode
of action and for immediately practical ends. His task is
literally for the day and his glory is to be a good ephemeral.
For him it is not merely vanity but a distortion of his proper
aim to aspire to be anything else. He throws into the com-
mon stock the good, bad, or indifferent that may be in him,
and must do it with a prodigality which would be crime in an
artist. Every man must do it in his own way, and no man
can teach his fellow. At the end the judgment passed on the
journalist will not be upon his writing, but, if anyone thinks
it worth while to judge him at all, upon what he contributed
of wisdom or folly to opinion in his time.

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CHAPTER XXXIII

ABOUT NORTHCLIFFE

The Times and Its Editorship — Friendship with Northcliffe — His
Qualities and Defects — His Attitude to the Westminster — An
Offer of Help — A Battle Royal — A Last Talk — Irish and Anglo-
Saxon — His Intuitions — Tariff Reform and the Stomach Taxes
—The "Funny Old Men."

IN a singular pamphlet which he wrote a few months
before his death, Northcliffe devoted several pages to
myself, and among other things took occasion to deny that
he had offered me the editorship of The Times, while hand-
somely allowing that I was one of the few men whom he thought
qualified for that position. The denial was true, but when
Buckle's resignation was pending, Repington, who was then
military correspondent of The Times, came to see me at my
house, apparently with Northcliffe's knowledge, and asked
me if there were any conditions on which, if it were offered
to me, I would accept the position. The conversation lasted
barely a quarter of an hour, and was wound up by my saying
that if The Times were to continue its then line of policy,
especially on Tariff Reform and Home Rule (as I was assured
must be the case), it was plain that Northcliffe could not offer
me the appointment or I accept it. It ended at that, and I
heard no more about it, but I may perhaps add now that
Northcliffe himself had already, though perhaps without
knowing it, shut the door on any chance I might have had of
becoming editor of The Times. For among the many schemes
for acquiring control of the paper early in 1908, there was one
promoted by a group which desired to convert it into a Free
Trade organ, and I was to a certain extent concerned in that.
In after years this has been represented as an attempt to

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ABOUT NORTHCLIFFE

capture The Times for pro-German interests, that legend hav-
ing, I suppose, arisen out of the fact that a well-known finan-
cier of Belgian origin who, like many Belgians, had a German
name, played some small part in it. Campbell-Bannerman
was one of the moving spirits in it, and the last communication
I ever received from him was a message from his sick-room
to say that he hoped it would go through and would result
in my being editor of a Free Trade and independent Times.
It did not go through, and if ever it had a chance, Campbell-
Bannerman's death extinguished it.

I am sure that The Times, which has splendidly surmounted
all its difficulties, has no reason to regret that it turned out so;
and, though to be its editor is a prospect which may fire the
ambition of any journalist, I had many consolations in remain-
ing where I was. There, the chief part of my work and the
part that I liked best was the daily writing, which it is almost
impossible to combine with the editing of a great morning
newspaper. Moreover, I was in great doubt about The Times
being financed by any group, for what it most seemed to need
at that moment was one predominant proprietor, who would
be prepared to support it in all circumstances. I remained
in suspense for some weeks, but NorthclifFe finally threw all
other competitors out of the field, and so far as I was con-
cerned, the question was settled. When the same question
arose at other times, with other morning papers, I gave the
answer unhesitatingly that I preferred to remain where I was.

To the end of his days NorthclifFe always had an attraction
for me. There was a time when I knew him intimately,
and Stead used to say that to convert him (I never knew quite
to what) was one of my missions in life. He was stubborn
material for any kind of gospeller, and used to leave one
breathless and disarmed by a bland denial of what one thought
to be first principles. The ease with which he made money,
the extraordinary flair that he had for the things that would
catch on, and his instant retreats from the things that did not,
were a perpetual astonishment to me. We often discussed
our respective abilities and disabilities, and he said that money-
making was "a mug's game" and wondered that I couldn't
do it. When the Westminster was first started he was still
in the homely little building just opposite our office where

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Answers was first produced, and I often went across to have
a talk with him and sometimes he came to see me. A year
or two later he moved into his Napoleonic office in Carmelite
House where the Daily Mail was now produced, and we con-
tinued to exchange visits. I expressed in the freest terms my
opinion of what I thought to be the enormities of his new
paper, and he never showed the slightest resentment, but
discussed with a cool impartiality whether they were good
journalism or not — a point which he always seemed to decide
finally in his own mind by a reference to the circulation books.
Though the money rolled in, he was not in the least vulgar
about it. He had known the pinch of poverty in his childhood,
and with his usual directness appears to have made up his
mind quite early in life that this obstruction to happiness
must be put out of the way for himself and all his family
before anything else was done. For the rest, money was to
him, as it was to Cecil Rhodes, the means to power, and he
was entirely without purse-pride in any of the ordinary
relations of life. He liked to live in pleasant surroundings,
and his wife showed rare taste and skill in the appointment
and furnishing of Sutton Place, and the planning of its beau-
tiful gardens, but the hospitality there was simple and charm-
ing, and without the slightest suspicion of social climbing.
Here, at home, he showed the qualities which attracted men
like Henley and Charles Furse; he had a real respect for writers
and artists; he read history with a hungry eye for powerful
characters, and showed a queer kind of unexpected knowledge
in his talk. His insight into the popular mind was so unerring
as to make him the perfect master of crowd psychology.
But his special pride was to be first in the field with coming
things, and the Sutton Place garage was full to overflowing
with motor-cars when they were still a dangerous novelty.
He loved to astonish and alarm his friends by whirling them
in these strange machines to what then seemed certain destruc-
tion, and gave them good or bad marks according as they
stood the test. I think I earned his approbation as one of the
few of the writing tribe who seemed to like it, and he invited
me to join him in the trials of his new ninety-horse-power
Mercedes. Starting at half-past six on a Sunday morning,
we went over the Hog's Back, with him at the wheel and the

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ABOUT NORTHCLIFFE

chauffeur on the step, and for one wild minute topped the
hundred miles an hour. It was terrifying, for I sat beside
him in a little seat with nothing to hold on to, but I managed
to conceal my emotions and was judged to have done welk

My missionary work made no progress, and I never flat-
tered myself that I had any influence over him. But I liked
him; there was a certain boyishness in his character and an
absence of pretence which was very attractive. I think he
liked me, but he made no secret that he thought of me and
the Westminster as baffling exceptions to the nature of things.
Here was a newspaper which, according to his standards,
had an entirely ridiculous circulation, and yet somehow
seemed to make an impression which in a well-ordered world
it ought not to make. That kind of influence, he said to me
quite frankly, was what he wanted, and if the Westminster
were his, he would double, treble, quadruple its circulation
and multiply its influence accordingly. I used to reply that
he couldn't own the Westminster without destroying it, that
the mere fact of the same proprietor owning two such papers
as the Mail and the Westminster and obviously running two
different policies in them would be fatal to the Westminster
and damaging to the Mail. He saw no objection; he had,
he told me, a great many papers with different policies, and
so long as they were good newspapers, he never interfered
with their policies. He added with a chuckle that he often
drew cheques for the salaries of editors and journalists who
attacked him fiercely in their newspapers, in bland ignorance
of the fact that he was their paymaster and proprietor.

One day in 1902 he came into my room in Tudor Street
and said that he had heard rumours that the Westminster was
in difficulties and was going to stop. He didn't wish to
ask me anything about these, but he nad a regard for me, and
he wanted to say that if I were in any trouble or anxiety, I
might at any moment draw on him for £100,000. Cynics
may suggest that he had a motive in this, but I am sure that
it was a generous and kindly impulse, and I told him at once
that I was greatly touched by his thought of me. But I
thought it the more due to him to say exactly what was in
my mind about any possible professional relations with him.
He had said that the use of his money to tide over a difficulty,

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

if there was one, would leave me perfectly free and under no
obligation to him. I replied that this was impossible, and
that if he paid that sum or anything like it, he would, in fact,
be proprietor of the Westminster and my master, and that I
was not willing that he should be my master, however much
I valued his friendship. We debated long and keenly about
our respective ideas of journalism, and I put to him certain
hypothetical cases in which I felt sure that he would not and
could not leave me my freedom. He said that they were too
remote to be worth considering, but admitted that I could
make a formal case. Finally, I asked, could either of us
afford to have this transaction made public, and if not, what
would be our position if we entered into it secretly ? This
ended the matter.

I spoke very plainly, but he bore me no malice. Rather,
I think, the knowledge that I stood definitely outside his
circle helped us to remain friends for two or three years longer.
Then for a period of years, the years of his greatest success,
I saw him no more. By this time I had taken up my parable
against certain things that he stood for, and our worlds were
so entirely different that the old familiarity had become
impossible. In 191 5 he attacked me violently in all his news-
papers, plastering the town with my name and apparently
suggesting that I was in the pay of the enemy. He was then
making an agitation about the air defences of London, and
I had strongly remonstrated, saying that London must resign
itself to occasional air raids until it was quite certain that the
front was well supplied with aircraft. The controversy is
not worth recalling, but in the course of it I said something
which appears to have stung him into a sudden wrath, and this
was his retort. I knew him well enough to be sure that, if I
merely kept a dignified silence, and let this stream of denun-
ciation descend on me day by day and perhaps week after
week, I should be very seriously damaged ; so I took off my
coat, threw away my moderation, and for the next three days
attacked him with all the weapons at my disposal. Before
the week was out he sent me a message to say that he had
always had the greatest respect for me and that the last thing
he had intended was to suggest anything that reflected on
my honour or character. Wouldn't I dine with him and let

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ABOUT NORTHCLIFFE

us lay our heads together about the situation ? I did not dine
with him, but this public wrangle between journalists in the
middle of the war had become an unseemly business, and I
was only too glad to make an end of it, though its sudden
cessation at what seemed to be its most interesting point
caused much speculation in both camps.

When the second Coalition had come and he was forming
the Propaganda Department which worked from Crewe
House, he asked me to join it; but I felt that I should be
intractable material in his hands and that I should be better
employed on my own job at the Westminster. So I declined
it and remained outside the inner circle during the next two
years. When the war was over, I saw him once more and for
the last time. I was at Victoria Station one day on my way
to the Kent coast, and was looking in vain for a place in a
crowded train, when I became conscious of a head thrust out
of a first-class carriage and a voice calling my name. It was
Northcliffe begging me to take one of two places that he had
reserved for himself, and for the next two hours we travelled
together and talked without ceasing. He seemed to pick up
the threads just where they had been broken twelve years
before, and plunged into an intimate and confidential account
of himself and his newspapers and his relations with Lloyd
George, especially the last. He seemed ill and worn, and
sadly at war with the world and his official friends. He said
he greatly resented the rumours that had been put about that
his quarrel with Lloyd George was due to mortification at
not being appointed a British delegate at the Peace Conference.
Those who spread this story knew perfectly well that in the
early months of 191 9 he was threatened with a very serious
operation, and under imperative medical orders to do nothing
but prepare himself for it. He spoke bitterly about the in-
gratitude of politicians and their tortuous ways, and said that
journalists had far better stick to their newspapers and give
them a wide berth. He added that he was not done with them
yet, and spoke sanguinely of his cure, which was then in pro-
gress, and what he was going to do afterwards.

His desire to be even with his official friends and to assert
himself powerfully before he went off the scene contributed
to the wreck of his health and made his last years confused

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

and feverish. But the campaign which, with Wickham Steed's
aid, he conducted against the Irish policy of the Govern-
ment, was one of the most powerful efforts in the journalism
of my time, and it was, I am sure, inspired by a generous
impulse in which the Irishman within him came to the top.
A good deal in NorthclifFe's character was, I think, explained
by this Irish strain. One half of him was an Irish romantic,
the other a scheming, ambitious, ruthless Anglo-Saxon.
The two were always fighting, and neither won. He had
an insatiable appetite for power, but never could make up
his mind what to do with it when he got it. This made him
the most restless and discontented of all the successful men
of his time, but it also redeemed him from the mere com-
mercialism which is the professed creed of other men of
his kind.

A candid study of NorthclifTe's mind and method would
be of enormous value to the psychologist of these times.
He was immensely important, however much solemn people
might try to blink or evade the fact. He and his imitators
influenced the common mind more than all the Education
Ministers put together; of all the influences that destroyed the
old politics and put the three-decker journalist out of action,
his was by far the most powerful. In a sense he was the only
completely convinced democrat I ever knew. He did really
believe that things ought to be decided by the mass opinion
about them, and to find out what that was or what it was
going to be, and to express it powerfully, seemed to him not
only profitable but right and wise. His complete detach-
ment from what are ordinarily supposed to be the merits of
things and total absorption in what people thought about
them were a perpetual amazement to me, until I grasped that
his mind really did work in this way and that he did honestly
think the fact of a thing's "catching on" to be the proof of
its Tightness.

He had extraordinary intuitions about this business of
"catching-on," but now and again he made rather serious
mistakes in applying his knowledge. I was behind the scenes
when he was making up his mind about Chamberlain's
tariff policy in 1903, and a very strange process it was. So
far as he had any views, he was a Protectionist, and he

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ABOUT NORTHCLIFFE

unhesitatingly ascribed what he called the "colossal success"
of Germany and the United States to their tariffs. But his
intuition told him that the British people would never stand
food taxes, and so, for a period, he held his hand while an army
of investigators listened to what the man in the street and the
man in the public-house was saying, and presently sent their
reports to Carmelite House in little black notebooks. The
little black notebooks overwhelmingly confirmed the intuition
(Northcliffe let me see some of them, and extremely
interesting they were), and the way was now clear to open
the famous campaign against the "stomach-taxes." But then
an unexpected thing happened. The Daily Mail readers, so
far from responding, were evidently hostile, and large num-
bers manifested their displeasure in letters to the editor.
Northcliffe was honestly puzzled. The ground had been
carefully explored and tested and every precaution taken
against error, and yet the expected results did not follow.
Something was wrong, but what could it be ?

Northcliffe pondered the matter deeply, and came to the
conclusion that the Free Trade case was being badly conducted.
C. B. was a duffer, Asquith had no magnetism, and the rest
dealt in economic arguments which were duller than ditch-
water. What could a live newspaper do with such dead-
heads? There must be a man to pit against Chamberlain,
and who else could it be but Rosebery — Rosebery properly
exploited and stage-managed, and not left in the hands of the
Liberal dodderers. So Northcliffe sat down and wrote a
letter to Rosebery offering to place the whole of his newspapers
and organization at his disposal, provided he would make a
minimum number of speeches during the autumn and winter
and permit them to be timed and arranged by Northcliffe
and his staff, so as to yield the utmost quantity of effective
publicity.

I happened to be staying at Mentmore on the day in
August, 1903, when this letter was delivered by a special courier
who found his way into a tent on the lawn in which we were
sitting on that very hot afternoon. The messenger withdrew
but stood outside, for, if I remember rightly, he was instructed
to wait for an answer. Rosebery read the letter and passed
it over to me, and having read it I am afraid I laughed. It

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

was so like Northcliffe and the whole scene was so bizarre.
Rosebery, too, laughed, but he was also visibly angry and,
going out of the tent, he told the messenger he would write.
Write he did, and though I did not see the letter, Northcliffe
told me afterwards that he was as impossible as all the other
Liberal leaders, and that no one in his senses would go tiger-
hunting with any of them.

So the "anti-stomach-tax" campaign was short-lived, and
Northcliffe discovered that, though his intuition about the
great public was as right as usual, it did not apply to the mil-
lion who read the Daily Mail. The vast majority of these
were simply middle-class folk who habitually voted Tory,
and saw no reason to doubt the assurance which was presently
given to them that the foreigner would pay. Northcliffe
never wavered in his belief that the Tory party were going
smash over the business, and he told me more than once that
I greatly underestimated the coming Liberal majority. But
his admiration for Chamberlain, as the one real business man
among politicians, the man who did things on the big scale
and knew how to put the waters in a roar, was unbounded,
and he compared him gleefully with the "funny old men"
who ran the Liberal party.

172

CHAPTER XXXIV

"WAR-GUILT"

The Doomed Generation and Its Elders — Did we Know? — Ignor-
ance and Its Causes — War Guilt — Our Attitude Towards War —
The "Sufficient" Cause — Our Approach to 1914 — An Unmoral
System — And Its Moral;

THE editor of the Daily Courant, the first daily paper
produced in the British Isles, said on presenting his
news sheet that he was sure his readers "would have enough
good sense to supply the reflections." His successors in the
subsequent two hundred and fifty years have certainly not
remained steadfast in this faith, and ingrained habit tempts me
to conclude this book with a few reflections on life and opinion
and finally on religion, in these times.

There is one thought which must often recur to a man of
my age. I was fifty-one years of age when the Great War
broke out. Had I been twenty years younger, it is highly
probable that instead of living to write this book I should
have found a grave on one or other of the battle fronts before
my thirty-fifth year. A man of my generation can never
forget the monstrous stroke of fate which fell on those who
chanced to be born between the years 1878 and 1898, or think
of the scores of thousands who went to early graves in the
Great War without feeling their fate to be a reflection on
his title to be alive. Still more so if he took any part in
public affairs and had any responsibility, even indirect, in the
shaping of the policy which was a sentence of doom for so
many of his juniors.

It is at all events our generation which will chiefly be held
to account, and it is precisely this generation which finds it
most difficult to give an intelligible account of itself. Speaking

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as an Englishman, I am not disposed, like some of my
contemporaries, to stand in a white sheet. I have read
practically the whole of the British documents between 1906
and 19 14, a large number of the German, most of the Bolshe-
vist publications, and many of the Memoirs and Reminiscences
that have appeared in different countries since the war. It
seems to me that our own country comes better out of this
test than almost any other, and that its policy looks honest and
straightforward, if, according to European standards, a little
naive. The general drift of opinion, even in ex-enemy
countries, is to acquit us of aggressive intentions and to
acknowledge that we were pursuing a defensive line imposed
on us by the policy of the Central Powers, and especially by
the German challenge to us at sea. This, I believe to be the
truth, and I believe also that if our successors should find
themselves in like circumstances, they will be compelled to
act as we did. The hope of the future is not, as I see it, that
they will be more moral or more pacific than we were, but
that they will not be placed in the circumstances in which we
found ourselves at the outbreak of the Great War and in the
preceding years.

There is one fact especially which seems to me to encourage
this hope, and which is newer in the history of opinion than
is generally realized. This is the acknowledgment by the
victors as well as the vanquished that the Great War was a
great catastrophe in which the suffering far outweighed the
gains. No one claims credit for having planned or forced
this war; the victors are as much concerned as the vanquished
to prove that the blame was on the other side. We now
habitually speak of "war-guilt" as the greatest of public
crimes, and have almost persuaded ourselves that we have
always thought of war in this way.

This, it seems to me, is an illusion which we ought not
to pass on to those who come after. The Great War arose
out of a state of opinion which regarded war as a legiti-
mate and normal method of promoting national interests;
and to prevent opinion slipping back into that atmosphere is
perhaps the greatest task before the coming generation. It
is a good thing, if only it lasts, that we should all be so
impressed with the horrors of war as to speak of war-makers

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"WAR-GUILT"

and militarists as criminals, but we did not speak or think in
that way before the war. Let me take as an example the case
which is commonly made against the Russians for having, as
is alleged, precipitated the war by mobilizing in July, 19 14.
This may, in a sense, be true, but at the time, not one person
in a hundred would have imputed "guilt" to Russia, if it had
been true. We might have called her precipitate or impolitic,
but we should not have called her guilty. For, according
to the ideas of the time, Russia was fully entitled to mobilize
after Austria had done so, and if she had left Serbia to her fate
without moving, she would afterwards have incurred much
the same reproach as we should have, if at the later stage we
had left Belgium to her fate. I myself felt, as I feel still,
that the rally of Russia to Serbia was one of the few spirited
acts of the Czardom, and though (if I had known all the facts)
I might have wished to restrain her from motives of prudence,
I should certainly not have held her morally to blame, when
she persisted.

The truth is that in the world in which we were brought
up, the crime was not to make war, but to make it unsuc-
cessfully, and so it had been from the beginning of time. Up
to 1914 all the Governments of Europe, our own included,
regarded war as a risk which had to be run, a legitimate
gamble, as Churchill said of the Dardanelles Expedition, a
"continuation of policy," as the Germans defined it. If any
question of "guilt" arose it was only between the unsuccessful
maker of war and his countrymen, who as a rule were
extremely unforgiving about it. The rest were judged by
results, and those who came back in triumph were almost
invariably acclaimed as great statesmen and saviours of their
country, regardless of whether they were aggressors or were
resisting aggression. In my early days Bismarck stood on
the highest pedestal among nation-makers and empire-builders,
and he acknowledged that he had welded the German Empire
in blood and iron in a series of carefully planned wars.
Frenchmen deplored the balance of forces which made it
seemingly impossible for them to recover the lost Provinces,
but very few of them would have thought it a crime to wage
war for their recovery, if there had been a reasonable chance
of its being waged successfully.

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Nor can it honestly be said that we British held a different
view. We considered ourselves to be pacific, but, as our
neighbours pointed out, we had been more frequently at war
than any of them, and the possibility of war entered into the
calculations of both our political parties. Somewhere about
the year 1900, I got myself into much trouble for saying,
"There is no peace-at-any-price party; there are only various
parties which disapprove of each other's wars. All the peace
parties that I have known have ardently desired to make war
on the Sultan of Turkey, but most of them appear to regard
it as a humanitarian picnic, which is almost certainly a delu-
sion." Massingham retorted sharply, not by denying the
imputation, but by saying that they were under no such delu-
sion. They thought war with all its horrors worth while for
the redemption of the Armenian Christians from massacre
and oppression. So far as I can remember, no one censured
Rosebery because in 1894 he was willing to resent to the point
of war what had appeared for the moment to be a deliberate
affront to the British flag in the far-away waters of the Mekong,
nor four years later was there any serious dissent when
Salisbury risked war with France to prevent Marchand from
hoisting the French flag on the upper Nile. In the following
year it was the serious opinion of most Englishmen, including
a considerable number of Liberals, that war was the only
solution of the British-Dutch problem in South Africa, and
the issue was passionately declared to be one of the "inevit-
ables" which can only be resolved by an appeal to the sword.
I thought that it might and ought to have been avoided, but I
could never bring myself to denounce it as a crime. It was,
in fact, according to all the standards of this time, the only
way out after the diplomatic boiling-up which had led to the
Kriiger ultimatum. "I date from the ultimatum as Moham-
edans from the Hegira," said Rosebery, and the vast majority
agreed with him. Again, in 1904 there were several days
when all parties contemplated war with Russia as the proper
way of resenting what was thought to be the deliberate outrage
of the Russian fleet on the fishermen of the Dogger Bank.
During these years we were all of us, Tories, Liberals and
Radicals, prepared to make war for what we deemed to be
sufficient cause. We might debate angrily about the sufficiency

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"WAR-GUILT"

of the cause, but we never denied that, if the cause was
sufficient, war was the legitimate ultima ratio, and not merely
for the defence of territory, but also for what were conceived
to be the interests of the British Empire or the resentment of
injuries to it.

This was the atmosphere in which we approached the
European struggle. From the year 1906 my own thoughts
were concentrated on the problem of sea power, and I thought
of almost everything else as subordinate to that. I had
done whatever a journalist could in the previous years to
keep the Anglo-French quarrel, which had been steadily
rising, within bounds ; and in the subsequent years to make an
end of it seemed to me essential, if the Germans were going
to challenge us at sea. Germany might be strong enough to
risk the enmity of France, Russia and Great Britain at the
same time; but we certainly were not strong enough to be on
bad terms with Russia, France and Germany at the same time.
The two-Power standard which had served us in the last
years of the nineteenth century would evidently be insuffi-
cient if we could suppose either three Powers being joined
against us, or the more likely event of Germany subduing her
enemies and joining their fleets to those of the Triple Alliance
in an attack on the British Empire. At first I believed and
hoped that British friendship with France would check
German ambitions, and enable us eventually to come to terms
with Germany and even to act as mediator between her and
France. But as the years went by, and one Navy Law
followed another, and the ex-Kaiser and his militarists talked
in louder and louder tones about their intentions, these hopes
waned, and it seemed more and more evident that the only
way of safety lay in building ships and cultivating the entente
with France and Russia. Looking back on it, I am inclined
to say that the die was cast for this country from the moment
when it became necessary under pressure of the German
Fleet to transfer the British Mediterranean Squadron to the
North Sea and arrange with France for the protection of the
Mediterranean. From that moment, we were morally, if not

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

technically, bound to act with France if her unprotected north-
ern coasts were attacked by Germany. In the circumstances
we were obliged to accept this obligation, for Germany her-
self by her fleet policy had thrust it on us.

For us at all events the problem, as I saw it, was a mechani-
cal and not a moral one, and we seldom thought of it in terms
of guilt or innocence. Russia and France were often very
uneasy bedfellows for us, and as a journalist I felt perfectly
free to criticize their action and to use any influence I possessed
to stem the growing hostility between Germany and ourselves.
Precisely because the situation was dangerous, it seemed
imperative to seize every opportunity of building bridges
with Germany and urging moderation on France and Russia,
provided it was understood that we were firm on the essen-
tials of maintaining the Entente and keeping our fleet supreme.
I see no reason why an Englishman should think it necessary
to defend all the proceedings of France and Russia in these
years. Personally I do not believe for a moment that the
post-war German theory that Poincare and Isvolsky were in
league to force war in the last two years is true, but
I do think that the French were unnecessarily provocative
on the Morocco question and especially in their march to
Fez in 191 1, and I do think that both Russia and Austria
were playing a dangerously sharp game in the Balkans in the
final eighteen months. But all this was in the atmosphere of
those times. In the state in which we lived it seemed natural
and commendable that each nation should use its power to
defend or promote what it supposed to be its own interests,
and the notion that any nation considered itself limited to
repelling aggression is either a post-war illusion or a figment
of war propaganda.

Ill

We had, I think, abundant justification on any code of
ethics whatever for taking up arms against Germany when
she invaded Belgium. That action on her part, combined
with the sinking of the "Lusitania," the launching of poison
gas and the ruthless submarine incensed Anglo-Saxon opinion
against her and made her, in the eyes of her enemies, the

178

"WAR-GUILT"

moral villain of the piece. Also we felt that the victory of
Germany would be the end of Liberal and democratic institu-
tions in Europe. It is nevertheless true — and perhaps the
most important part of the truth about the old Europe — that
if Germany had been incontestably in the right and her con-
duct in the war irreproachable, the reasons compelling this
country to take sides against her would have been just as
strong, and its position just as perilous, if it had failed to do
so, as on the contrary assumption. Whatever the issue on
which she fought, a victorious Germany in possession of
Belgium and the Channel ports and commanding all the
fleets of Europe must have been a deadly menace to the
British Empire, and, according to the accepted principles of
power-politics she would have been entitled to assert her
supremacy over it in any way she chose. Under the balance
of power system, the balance had to be in your favour, whether
your opponents were angels or devils. It was good fortune
if they put you morally in the right by acting as devils, but
this was not the essence of the matter. The essential thing
was that you were caught up in a play of forces from which
the common morality was ruled out. You might have all the
virtues on your side and yet be ruined; you might commit
every wickedness and yet emerge triumphant. In such a
world it necessarily became virtue in a statesman to have the
forces on his side and be thankful if he could plausibly main-
tain that his opponents were morally in the wrong.

Men of my generation grew up with this system, became
hardened to it, accepted its assumptions, and acted according
to its logic. We looked to our statesmen to play the diplo-
matic game with skill and not to leave us isolated in a hostile
world. For the greater part of our lives we had no prepos-
sessions or preferences as between our neighbours in Europe.
From the 'seventies right down to 1906 Russia was supposed
to be our principal rival and potential enemy, and for a great
many years we leant on Germany and the Triple Alliance and
had dangerous quarrels with France. We came very near an
alliance with Germany in 1899, and, had the Germans not
drawn back at the eleventh hour, the whole course of history
might have been different. Then, when the Germans began
to develop their sea power, we found safety in the French and

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Russian ententes. Under the system there was no other way,
and it was great good fortune for us to have had statesmen
who held firmly to this line and resisted the attempt to drive
wedges between us and our partners on subordinate issues.
The judgment must be broadly on the management of forces,
and the best thing we can do for those who come after is to
make a clean breast of it and leave the moral verdict to history.

So far as this fundamentally immoral or un-moral system
had any one author, it was Bismarck, whose leading idea it was
to obtain "security" for Germany after the Franco-German
war by alliances which must have dominated Europe, if
the field had been left clear to them. What Bismarck failed
to see was that a German alliance would inevitably be coun-
tered by another alliance; and that the armed competition of
these two, and the mutual fears and jealousies attending it,
would lead to a far greater struggle than any that was con-
templated in his time or in his scheme of statesmanship,
which thought of war as a short, sharp and successful assault
upon opponents isolated and taken unawares. The respon-
sibility for what followed was spread over fifty years and dis-
tributed between six principal Powers and innumerable
Ministers, most of them creatures of the hour, who found
themselves faced with an accumulation of established facts in
which it was dangerous to make even a well-intentioned
departure. Campbell-Bannerman in 1906 sincerely and hon-
estly desired to make a new move towards disarmament, but
he found to his enormous surprise that the article published
in the Nation in which he threw out this idea was regarded in
Germany as a threatening manifestation. I was solemnly
called upon at the time to write articles which were telegraphed
to and published in German papers explaining that he had no
bellicose intention. To the German it seemed as if the
British Government had made up its mind to call a halt to
German shipbuilding at the point most convenient to itself,
and from that it was but a short step to assume that it would
make war if its demand was refused.

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"WAR-GUILT"

Indeed, no adventure seemed less promising or more
dangerous in these days than the endeavour to promote
peace by disarmament, and, had there been a convinced
pacifist Power, it would certainly have had to fight for its
cause. The one hope for the world is that the coming gener-
ation will know what war on the European scale is and must
be. Our generation did not know it. It used the current
phrases about the horrors of war, but the wars which it had
in mind were the Crimean War, the Franco-German War and
the Boer War. All the militarist philosophers assumed that
the victory would be on their side. When they spoke of
blood and iron, it was of their own iron and other people's
blood that they were thinking; when they talked of the
"terrible medicine/' it was their enemy and not themselves
who were to take it. It was thought unmanly in these circles
to contemplate even the possibility of defeat. In August,
1 914, the German General Staff dreamt of swift and crushing
blows compelling the enemy to surrender before he knew
what had happened to him; and it was as little prepared as
its opponents with either plans or munitions for the inter-
minable war of exhaustion which followed when this dream
faded. Still less did any Government or General Staff foresee
the development of "frightfulness" which all the authorities
agree in thinking to be only a faint shadow of what the future
may produce if the nations proceed again to the test of arms.

I think it is safe to say that if our generation had realized
what the Great War was to be, whether for victors or van-
quished, there would have been no Great War, but whether
another generation will learn of our experience is beyond
prophecy, and one must leave it at Grey's "learn or perish."
We lived in pre-scientific times. We had enough science to
make very deadly engines of war, but not enough to measure
their effect. We worked on a mediaeval theory with weapons
which blew our theory sky-high. What our successors have
to realize is that science turns war into a destructive anarchy,
in which the defeat of all the combatants is to be presumed.
The philosophy of war has always been the philosophy of
successful war, and there is no theory which can turn a defeat
into a "continuation of policy." The one lesson which our
generation can teach to those who come after is that war is

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

the ruin of policy and the way of destruction for all the
combatants. It remains for them, if they wish civilization to
survive, to build up a new opinion on this basis and to
organize it for the keeping of the peace. We can only confess
that our theory — which was the theory of all the world
then — and the organization built on it came in our time to
what ought to be its final disaster.

A last thought to pass on is that all the efforts to humanize
war and limit its f rightfulness broke down in our time, when
put to the test. We know now that war cannot be civilized.
It goes backward as other institutions go forward, and causes
the powers of destruction to outrun the powers of creation.
The Great War leaves it an open question whether the scien-
tific age which began in the nineteenth century has on balance
been of benefit to mankind. Another generation will cer-
tainly not be able to leave that question unanswered.

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CHAPTER XXXV

POLITICS AND PROGRESS

The Decline of Liberalism — Some General Causes — Nonconformists
and Politics — The Attack on the Capitalist System — Fabianism
and Marxism — Labour as a Refuge — Impending Changes —
Faith in Democracy — Difficulties of Democratic Govern-
ment— The Need of New Machinery — Knowledge and Opinion
in Politics.

NYONE who like myself has devoted a large part of his
life to Liberal politics must feel some sense of failure
when he looks at the political scene in the year 1027. His
reward would indeed be meagre if he were paid by results
as measured in the condition of the Liberal party. Someone
said in the last year of the eighteenth century that the Whig
party in the House of Commons could all have driven home
together in a single hackney coach. "That," replied George
Byng, "is a calumny; we should have filled two." I do not
know the capacity of an eighteenth-century hackney coach,
but one charabanc could accommodate the entire Liberal
party in the House of Commons at the time at which I am
writing. Twenty years ago this party was ruling the A
country in overwhelming strength, and four years later A
it twice put its fortunes to the test and each time came \J
back with a majority which made its Parliamentary position/
impregnable.

What has happened, and why has it happened ? Liberal-
ism, says one, is an outworn creed which has had its day, and
is very properly wound up. Liberalism, says another, is
immortal and indestructible and will live on, though the
Liberal party perishes. The Liberal party, says a third, has ;
been ruined by the war and will come again, like the Whig

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

party, when we have recovered from the war. And so
and so on. • I will not attempt to decide, but I own
I have very littie belief in Liberalism being reincarnated
in either a Labour party or a Tory party, if there is no
Liberal party to secure it an independent existence. In
politics the still small voice requires an organized expression,
if it is to be heard in the din of conflicting classes and
interests.

The tenacity with which organized Liberalism has held
its ground against every kind of discouraging circumstance
from the end of the war onwards seems to me to afford the
best ground for hope, but it is important to face certain con-
ditions in the modern public life which are unfavourable to
the Liberal party. High among these I would put the decline
of the public speech. There is probably a greater volume
of oratory poured out on platforms and at street corners
to-day than at any time in the world's history. But no orator
in these days has anything like the influence on the public
mind that Gladstone and Bright and Chamberlain had in my
younger days. As things are, none can have. The new
speakers may speak with the tongue of men and of angels, but
the newspapers do not report them and the public conse-
quently cannot read them. Lloyd George, whom one would
suppose to be at least "good copy," may think himself lucky
if he gets half a column in a morning paper for a speech taking
an hour to deliver. This has been comparatively unimportant
to other parties, for Toryism relies on solid interests which
tell their own story, and Labour makes a class appeal which is
correspondingly simple. Butjp Liberalism, which always
depended on the _preaching^of the doctrine, it has been most
damaging. To vast numbers of people in the last century
the speeches of men like Gladstone and Bright were spiritual
meat and drink, which kept the faith alive in a manner far
more vital and potent than the programmes and material
inducements of later days. Whether his theme was Ireland,
or the franchise, or Turkish atrocities, Gladstone talked
something that the whole country recognized as
Liberalism, something that transfigured the party strife
and made an appeal from the worse to the better side of its
nature.

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POLITICS AND PROGRESS

But correspondingly there was an audience which was
receptive of this appeal. Behind the Liberal party was the
solid phalanx of British Nonconformists and Scottish
Presbyterians, who hitched their politics on to their religion
and moved as a mass at the call of Liberal leaders. Their own
leaders, Dr. Clifford, Dr. Dale, and thousands of lesser men
had no scruple about talking politics from their pulpits, and
they were perpetually on fire about religious equality in
church and school. The conscientious objection movement
sprang from them, and in the first years of the century there
were resounding controversies and shattering crises about
dogmatic and undogmatic teaching in the elementary schools.
All that seems a century removed from us in these days.
When the smoke cleared away and politics were started again
after the war, the religious question had clean vanished from
the scene. No one seemed to care whether Churches were
established or disestablished, or what, if any, sort of religion
was taught in the schools, or who paid for it. Churches and
chapels alike complained that their congregations were dwind-
ling and that they could only with great difficulty induce young
men to join their ministries. Apparently the mass of people
believed so little either in denominational or undenomina-
tional religion as to be quite indifferent to the controversy
between diem.

A good thing too, I can hear the younger generation say-
ing; and I agree that after twenty years I could not easily
rekindle my own emotions on these subjects, or the serious
zeal with which I used to travel between Downing Street and
Lambeth in humble efforts to find ways out of the interminable
impasses into which they led us. I agree, too, that we are
well rid of the bigotry and bitterness which too often dis-
figured this warfare. But comparing the former years with
the latter, it seems to me that something of importance has
been lost in this lowering of the religious temperature. It is
so difficult to get rid of religious bigotry without getting rid of
religion; and the light-heartedness with which the newcomers
extrude the great body of disinterested doctrine preached by
the old Liberals and substitute for it a purely materialist appeal
to class interests, points to an eclipse of faith which is more
important than the decay of any religious dogma.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

s ' Next among the causes unfavourable to Liberalism is the
jsv> /state of mind, following the war and learnt in war, which
i looks for great and sudden changes in place of the steady
V development on which Liberalism relied. This is so impor-
tant that it is worth a brief analysis. When I was young, the
radical workman had a strong contempt for foreign theorists
and would have scorned to borrow his politics from Karl
Marx or any German or Russian revolutionary. I can scarcely
remember to have heard the words "capitalism" or "capitalist
system" except in the lectures of professors of political
economy in trie first twenty years of my working life. In
those days it was taken for granted that we lived in a world of
employers and employed, whose relations it was desirable to
improve if we could; and we thought of this not as a system
invented by people called "capitalists" and to be destroyed by
other people called "workers," but as part of the nature of
things, and, like all parts, compounded of good and evil, and
vice and virtue. Socialism was discussed in drawing-rooms,
but it was the Socialism of "News from Nowhere" and "Look-
ing Backwards," and no one supposed it to be practical politics.
The Fabians, who were next on the scene, made a special
point of being practical politicians with a policy of "peaceful
penetration," applied first to the London County Council and
then to the Liberal party. They had great success and
deserved it, and for a period we were all "collectivists," a
blessed word which saved any searchings of heart about the
foundations of society. A Liberal journalist like myself
would be very ungrateful if he did not make his acknowledg-
ments to the indefatigable programme-spinners of the Fabian
Society. They were always willing to help, and left you
free to pick and choose between their innumerable schemes,
and did not even expect that you should acknowledge your
borrowings. In my lifetime there have been no more
disinterested and zealous servants of the public than Mr. and
Mrs. Sidney Webb and Graham Wallas and certain others
whom they inspired. Keir Hardie and his stalwarts of the

186

POLITICS AND PROGRESS

I.L.P. were much more intractable people, and it was they
who started the idea of breaking with the Liberal party and
hoisting the separate Labour flag. But up, at all events, to
1906 their complaint was rather that the Liberal and Radical
pace was not hot enough and would not be, so long as employ-
ers and rich men dominated the party, than that the founda-
tions of society were rotten. A reasonable accommodation
between Liberal and Labour was still possible for the 1906
election, and if there were revolutionary Socialists in the Parlia-
ment that followed, they made no sign and I do not know their
names. Whatever their ultimate opinions might be, the
Liberal and Labour members of that Parliament were com-
pelled to hold together against a determined and passionate
Opposition; and both made the discovery that the programmes
of these years could only with the greatest difficulty be carried
in the teeth of it. With the daily problem of getting these
programmes through, there was literally no time to think of
more advanced proposals.

It may be true, as Labour historians assure us, that the
seemingly dead or slumbering Marxian doctrine was coming
to life again in these years and preparing the way for the
challenge to the "Capitalist system" which Labour threw
down after the war, but no such explanation is necessary.
The four years' upheaval of the Great War blew governments
and institutions sky-high all over Europe and inevitably
exposed those that remained standing to searching questions.
There is no reason to repine about this, and in the long run it
may prove to have been good for everybody, but during the
process of challenge and defence, the Liberal finds himself
reduced to the position of amicus curia. He is neither plaintiff
nor defendant, in this action. He wants neither the Labour
dictatorship which would follow if Capital were defeated, not
the Capitalist ascendancy which would follow if Labour were \
disarmed. He dislikes equally the revolution which Labour/
proposes and the reaction from it in the Conservative party,/
and looks for a return to more sober politics when these two
combatants are discredited or exhausted. In the meantime
it is his special task to stand on guard for parliamentary
government and other free institutions which, as events have
proved, are easily sacrificed to their necessities.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

It is evident that those who think on these lines cannot
find rest or foothold in the other camps. Most of my own
inclinations towards Socialism — and they were at one time
pretty strong — have been quenched by Socialist propaganda
and literature. It is my business as a journalist to be acquaint-
ed with Socialist theory, and to be a constant reader of
Socialist newspapers and periodicals. With all possible
allowance for the bitterness of the under-dogs and the utmost
endeavour to realize what they must feel, the ill-will and
uncharity which run through so much of the writing in these
publications is to me very repellent. I find it extraordinarily
difficult to believe that sane men with a feeling for humanity
can seriously desire to kindle class-consciousness or foment
class-war. Then the constant ascription of all the evils to
which humanity is heir to a small number of people called
capitalists and the consequent ruling out of all that the Vic-
torians called self-help seem to me childish and unmanly. I
do not in the least wish to palliate what bad employers have
done to produce this attitude, but the assumption on which
most of this doctrine appears to be based that the workman
must always be on the defensive for something called his
standard of living and never contribute to improve this stan-
dard, lest the capitalists should benefit, strikes the middle-class
man as a counsel of despair which is in no way justified by
the character and capacity of the British worker.

This may be put down to middle-class prejudice or
lack of sympathy. But reason also rebels when one is asked to
accept ideas about Government and society and the nature and
sources of wealth which either fly in the teeth of experience or
are plainly apocryphal when brought to the test of ascertained
fact. For these reasons I cannot, as Massingham did in the
last years of his life, join Labour in despair of Liberalism. I
do not accept the Labour doctrine; I think the class-war
detestable; I disbelieve in economic miracles ; a party bound to
trade unions and calling itself Labour is as repugnant to
my Liberal ideas as a party calling itself Capitalist and bound
to landlords or brewers. The Tory party is too skilful to
call itself by that name, but it comes so near it in fact, and its
Protectionist creed places it so much at the mercy of selfish
interests, that I am driven also from that refuge. What, then,

i8t

POLITICS AND PROGRESS

am I and the likes of me to do? I can only answer, to try
our utmost to keep Liberalism and the Liberal party alive,
and to save it from being merged into the other parties.
By so doing we may carry on a tradition which neither of them
can be trusted to preserve, and eventually come again as the
Whigs did in the nineteenth century.

Ill

Exactly how is beyond prediction. None of us who are
living in these times can be without what Morley used to call
the "presentiment of the eve" — the sense of great changes
coming. Modern capitalism, though it has to an enormous
extent transformed the nature of property, still clings to the
pre-capitalist theory of property. It still talks and thinks as
if it were absolute master and owner, though nearly all its
"values" are estimates of future earnings which assume and
depend upon the co-operation of Labour. At the same time
the modern employer carries on the feudal tradition which he
inherited from landlords and is in perpetual friction with
trade unionists demanding an equal status and a share in
the management of what he considers to be his private affairs.
This cannot last. The fact that wealth is a co-operative pro-
duct must find expression in the structure of industry, and
the industrial masters, like the political sovereigns, share their
power and be content to reign as constitutional rulers. It is
an enormous and very difficult change, needing patience and
forbearance on both sides, and those who want to make it
sudden and violent had better take warning from Russia and
Italy that they will only be substituting one autocracy for
another. Here, again, the question is whether we can learn
of other people's experience or must make disastrous experi-
ments on our own account before we find the right road.

I am often asked whether I have not lost faith in democracy
in the stress of these days. The answer requires a definition
of what is meant by "faith" and "democracy." For myself,
I have never for a moment regarded democracy — by which
I mean representative government based on a wide suffrage —
as a solution of the problems of government. I have regarded

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

it as the system which gives a civilized and reasonably well-
educated people the best opportunity of securing fair and just
government and of expressing its own character through its
government. And so I still regard it. To me, liberty and
self-expression are things which have a value in themselves,
and the loss of which would be a real deprivation. It may be
that Italians and Spaniards and Russians are rightly judged by
their masters to be incapable of governing themselves
intelligently, but I cannot imagine myself being a citizen of
Italy, Spain, or Russia without feeling that I had suffered a
serious loss of self-respect in making the submission required
by their rulers. This seems to me the normal human way
of feeling about government, and I think it ought to be
expressed in the forms of government.

Democracy, moreover, has the great merit of upholding
the theory that human beings as such have a value which is
not to be measured by the inequalities of rank and wealth.
It is among institutions like the holy city of Puri in India,
in which caste is suspended and the Brahmin and the outcaste
meet on equal terms before their Maker. To have a constant
reminder in the theory of the State that the humblest and
meekest of its citizens may have a worth which places him
above the highest and wealthiest of his fellows is a great thing
and a noble thing and a Christian thing. Morally, I can
think of no greater set-back than that humanity should be
declared or proved incapable of it.

But as fine things are difficult and the corruption of the
best is the worst, one must look the facts in the face and try
to measure them coolly. There have been two great surprises
about democracy in our time. The first is that it came tri-
umphantly out of the war ; the second that, so far, it has made
so poor a business of the peace. Fifteen years ago theorists
would have predicted the exact opposite of both these things.
They would have said that democracy would be weak in war
and strong in peace; they would have predicted its collapse
before the stronger discipline, but they would have said
that if it survived it would treat its enemies mercifully
and indulgently. On the contrary, the military autocracies
went down testifying in their last gasp to the superior staying
power of democracy, and the triumphant democracies made

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POLITICS AND PROGRESS

the Treaty of Versailles. In 191 8 and 191 9 the British democ-
racy proved incapable of the moderation which the vic-
torious aristocrats, Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington,
insisted upon after the Napoleonic wars.

If we reflect on this history, we may find it not quite so
puzzling as it seems. Democracy was strong when governed
by the simple and emotional appeals of war-time, and weak
and fumbling when faced with the intricate and perplexing
problems of the peace. Excited by competing politicians,
its war-time emotions flowed over into the peace and were
allowed to govern economic problems which could only have
been handled wisely in a cool and scientific atmosphere. The
history of German Reparations shows the consequences.
For six years politicians clung to romantic illusions in the
teeth of expert advice, and by so doing reduced finance to
confusion, shattered currencies, confiscated the property of
innocent people and produced untold misery and bitterness.
Some of them may have acted in pure ignorance, but in general
their excuse was that democracy would not bear to be told
the truth. This is not, I think, the proved fact, but it
is in most countries the undoubted teaching of experi-
ence that politicians will not dare to tell democracy
unpalatable truth.

Government by experts would be a detestable thing, but
this experience undoubtedly suggests that democracy needs
some machinery whereby politicians should be compelled to
defer to experts on their own ground The burden we are
placing on popular government is one that it cannot be
expected to carry with its present mechanism. Every journal-
ist knows that as the circulation of a newspaper increases,
the appeal to its readers must be on simpler and broader lines.
But whereas journalists can, to a certain extent, control
their subject matter, Governments cannot. As their constitu-
ents have increased, their subject matter has become more
difficult and intricate, and the attempted simplification of it
leads to the violent and dangerously distorted partisan
"slogan." Governments meanwhile are alternatively defying
expert opinion and deferring to it on highly important matters
in ways unknown to the public. There is, for example, a
general agreement among men competent to judge that the

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return to the gold standard was fraught with greater conse-
quences to millions of men and women than any other act of
Government in these years, and if ever there was a subject
which should have been laid open to public debate and the
consequences of one course of action or another explained in
simple terms before action was taken, it was surely this.
Action, nevertheless, was taken privately on the advice of
unknown experts, and the country found itself plunged
unawares into confusion and strife which might have been
avoided if its mind had been prepared.

Flying in the teeth of experts and acting privately in
deference to experts are equally ways of disaster for Govern-
ments in democratic conditions. What, then, is the way of
safety? More and more one's mind revolves round this
problem, and I think I see some light in an analogy from the
law courts. There, when counsel have presented their cases,
there is a judge to sum up, to simplify the issues and present
them fairly to the jury. In politics there is nothing between
counsel and jury. This did well enough when the con-
stituencies were small and the issues few and simple, but it
breaks down when the constituencies are immense and the
issues difficult and complicated. No analogy must be pressed
too far, but the necessity for some permanent authority
detached from party politics which snail disentangle fact
from opinion, take out of controversy what is ascertained
fact, gather up experience, concentrate it on the problem of
the hour and define the consequences of alternative courses of
action in simple and intelligible terms, seems to me very
urgent. Royal Commissions and special Committees do not
fill this gap. We need as a regular part of the machinery of
government a permanent body, railed off from politics, with
the best brains at call, whose definite business it shall be to issue
periodic reports on the economic condition of the country, and
to bring all possible light to bear on proposals immediately
before it. Such a body would have to be equipped with an
adequate census of production and an apparatus of serviceable

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statistics far more perfect than any that Government Depart-
ments now command. But thus equipped it would bring to
government the element of science of which it is sorely in
need and enable questions to be put to electors in a form in
which they would be competent to answer them. This would
not ensure us against human error, but it would at least check
the demagogues and prevent them from playing on an ignor-
ance which they do not share.

But all the systems are liable to demagogues, and we shall
not be rid of them by reacting violently from democracy.
So far as my own opinions have changed, it has been towards
realizing that, whatever the system, government is a far more
difficult and intricate business than I thought when I
was young. Coming on the scene towards the end of a long
sheltered period in which nothing fundamental had been
questioned, one was tempted to believe that many questions
had been finally answered which had in reality been
shirked, and that many institutions were firmly established
which were in fact very insecure. I feel now that we are
only at the beginning of some things we thought finished, and
that the art of government in particular is still in its infancy.
But I have none of the sense which appears to afflict so many
men of my age that the world is senile or decadent and
doomed in the next generation to a twilight period of fading
out. Rather it seems to me exuberant and young, full of an
energy of breaking and making which, however disturbing
it may be to individuals who are growing old, is essentially
youthful. Looking back on the recent years, I cannot believe
that any country in which the spirit of youth was not alive
could have restored its credit, carried its immense burden of
debt, supported its unemployed, improved its standard of
living and provided a large margin for sport and pleasure, as
this country has done in the years since the war. That it
brims over in places and provides us with new and perplexing
problems is the natural other side to it, but the same spirit that
creates these problems will, I am confident, solve them.

How can we harness opinion to knowledge and steady the
emotions of the multitude with experience and science?
This, it seems to me, is the master problem of our time.

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CHAPTER XXXVI

RELIGION AND LIFE

Religious Controversy in Childhood — A Battle and a Truce — H. B.
Swete and His Influence — Difficulties of Belief — Changes in
Forty Years — Is Religion Declining? — A Stumbling Block to
the Poor — The Sermon on the Mount and Modern Life — The
Clergy and Public Affairs — A Not Impossible Religion.

IN the last chapter I spoke of the decline in the religious
temperature as a feature of recent years. In this con-
cluding chapter I will endeavour to set down certain thoughts
on this subject, starting, as I must, from my own experience
and observation. The changes of religious belief have influ-
enced all affairs, big and little, public and private, in these
years, and they have gone deeper and spread more widely than
is generally realized.

From my early childhood I lived in an atmosphere of
religious controversy. The "Tracts for the Times" had a
place of honour in my father's library, and his mind dwelt on
the Oxford movement and the rediscovery of the Catholic
tradition in the Church of England. In my last talks with
him in the middle of the Great War he was still deploring the
secession of Newman, and anxiously considering the point
at which he took the wrong road. My father's family had
a variegated religious history. His father, starting life as a
Churchman, had taken to reading German philosophy, which
had the curious result of turning him into a Congregationalism
But he sent his son, my father, to King's College, London, and
there in the early 'forties he fell under Tractarian influences,
and remained under them for the rest of his life. Like many
of the old High Churchmen, he disliked ritualism and was not
at all fond of going to church. He would go to an early

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communion service or to some other short service which he
had satisfied himself beforehand would not last more than
forty minutes. If it was a minute longer, he sighed audibly
and watched for the first opportunity to walk out. Being
a doctor he could do this without scandal, but his motives
were seldom medical.

He was very anxious that his children should be taught
the true doctrine of the Anglican via media, and he spent much
time in explaining to us the niceties and subtleties which
carried it safely through the channel (of "no meaning" as
Newman finally said) between the Scylla of Rome and the
Charybdis of Protestantism. Unfortunately at this time in
Bath there was no church which was not either very high or
very low, and since my father disliked Protestantism a little
more than ritualism, he consented rather reluctantly to our
going to an " advanced church," at all events on Sunday
mornings. But no sooner was this settled than a sharp con-
flict set in between him and my grandmothers, both of whom
were deeply evangelical and had a high sense of their religious
duty to their grandchildren. This made life difficult for
my father, and one day he consented to end it by a com-
promise. We were to continue to attend the ritualistic
church in the morning, but in the evening we were to go to
"the Octagon"— the famous old proprietary Church of England
chapel in Milsom Street, Bath — where a North of Ireland
Protestant expounded the true evangelical faith. To make
everything easy, one of the grandmothers rented a large
semi-circular pew (with a fireplace in it) to accommodate
four of us in this chapel, and for the next two years we went,
as these elders decreed, to the high church on the Sunday
morning and the low church on the Sunday evening. And
then, that no part of the Sabbath should be lost, one of the
grandmothers held a bible-class in the afternoon which also
we had to attend. The day was prolonged and contentious,
and we hotly debated among ourselves about the respective
merits of the two places of worship. I am afraid in my own
thoughts it came to a weighing of the delights of the
round pew with the fire in it — which we furtively poked
— against the charms of high ritual and candles burning in
daylight.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

I cannot remember that I felt any religious emotions at
this time. I disliked the Gregorian chants — or at all events
the manner in which they were sung — at the high church,
and felt the dreariness of the mumbling at the low church.
The preacher in the latter was an immense man in a black
gown — very kindly out of the pulpit — whom we called the
bull of Bashan. His discourses were more exciting than the
sacramental arguments of the high church clergy, but on
the other hand there was some interest in watching for
" Catholic " audacities which could be repeated to our
grandmother at the afternoon bible-class. The general
impression I got of religion in these years was that of some-
thing extremely confused and argumentative in which no-
thing could be stated without being disputed. A little later
the high church took me for confirmation and for a few
months I came under the influence, but the devotional books
given me for the communion service were highly unsuitable
for a boy, and I reacted violently from them.

When I was fourteen, my cousin and godfather, Henry
Swete, afterwards Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge,
invited me to spend the Easter holidays with him at Caius
College, Cambridge, where he was Dean and Tutor. I
stayed with him in College, dined every evening at high
table, and sat next to a senior wrangler. It was immensely
exciting, and I wandered all over Cambridge, exploring it
with a thoroughness which no undergraduate would have
dreamt of. My cousin was the gentlest and kindest of men,
and gave me all the time that he could spare from his busy
and learned life. Among his books was a small but very
choice collection of manuscripts — gospels, books of hours,
fragments of liturgies — and very patiently he taught me to
read some of these, explaining the abbreviations and the
differences in the writing of different periods. The study
fascinated me, and I remember the thrill with which I handled
these lovely books and turned the pages for the illuminated
letters and exquisite little pictures. I even went to the
length of learning to write Greek in the manner of a Celtic
gospel, and the following term sent up a copy of Greek
verses written out in that style to my Headmaster, who very
rightly rebuked me for this pretentious vanity.

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My cousin seldom talked religion to me, but I have never
before or since met anyone who instilled it so gently and
naturally or invested it with such charm and refinement.
Though his learning was vast, his literary instinct was
unquenched, and his memory was stored with delightful
snatches from early Christian hymns, prayers and liturgies
which had an enchanting twilight sound. I am afraid I
misled him by my literary pleasure in these things, for he
seemed to take for granted that I should follow in his foot-
steps and live the life of a scholar and theologian. He moved
from Cambridge to a country living a little later, and for two
years I spent part of my summer holidays with him and took
a class in his Sunday school, and joined in the ceremonial of
his church. Insensibly in these visits I slipped back into his
devotional atmosphere and felt its charm and peace. But
everything else in these years was pulling the other way, and
I became conscious of a certain duplicity which ended in my
telling him rather abruptly one day that I was not what he
thought me to be, and had no idea of following the clerical
profession. He was as kind and gentle as ever, and tried
neither reproaches nor persuasion, but I felt that I had dis-
appointed him. To the end of his life I scarcely passed a year
without paying him a short visit, and I never entered his
house without the old sense of slipping back into the ages of
faith.

Religion never ceased to be the subject at home, and my
father stood on guard for orthodoxy. There was a day of
terror when he discovered Renan's "Vie de Jesus" among
my books, and took it in a pair of tongs and placed it on the
back of the kitchen fire. But he let me keep the "Origin of
Species" and the "Data of Ethics," and unwisely took in the
Fortnightly (under John Morley's editorship), which I devoured
from cover to cover. By this time the battle over our place
of worship had ceased, and we were delivered to the school
chapel and the Headmaster, whose method was to anchor his
pupils firmly to ideas of conduct and public spirit as inde-
feasible things defying all scepticism, but after that to leave
them free to "go wherever the argument led," provided they
were honest and fearless. In his hands, religion and philo-
sophy became one, and dogma went into the background.

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Boldly he laid down the Platonic maxim that nothing was to
be believed which attributed to God what would be mean and
unworthy if attributed to men. It seemed simple and obvious,
but the applications, which he left to his pupils, were shatter-
ing to a great deal that passed for theology. Much as I
respected my father, I kept my own counsel with him, but
my mother was an indefatigable searcher after truth, and
debates begun with the Headmaster were continued with her at
home. Her plea was always for the mystical something which
distinguished religion from philosophy; but presently old
Samuel Carter Hall came along and swept her into spiritualism,
where I refused to follow.

Not all homes were like mine, but a great many young
people brought up in the 'seventies and 'eighties went through
the same process, and it is perhaps worth a little further
consideration.

My own religious difficulty and that of many of my friends
was not what our elders supposed. We were scarcely at all
interested in Church controversies or dogmatic theology; our
trouble was to get an idea of God which had any meaning or
reality. I remember about my nineteenth year reading the
passage in which Newman says that not to believe in God was
to him as if he had looked into the glass and found his face
not reflected there, and being obliged to confess to myself
that I had no such feeling. I heard everybody about me talking
of "atheists" as being beyond the pale of ordinary agnostics
and unbelievers, and it gave me an uncomfortable feeling to
think that I might be in this outer darkness. But the idea of
God which seemed to be at the root of Christian theology, and
of its doctrine of atonement, became more and more incredible
to me, and I could see no use in definitions which, as in some
of the creeds, seemed to be deliberately contradictory. It
was one thing to say that God was unknowable and quite
another to define him in terms which, if words meant any-
thing, were mutually destructive. In these years certain
passages in Dante seemed to give me a worthier idea of God
than any religious book, even the Bible.

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RELIGION AND LIFE

In later years Barnett kept saying that "to be without God
in the world" was the great human calamity, and it was nearly
all that he said about religion at Toynbee Hall. So also said
Jowett in Balliol Chapel, but neither defined what they meant
by God, and in Jowett's hands His image faded into a vague
mist. I am wholly convinced that to be without God in the
world is a great calamity, but the thought has never left me
that to obtain a worthy and intelligible idea of God is for
human beings a desperate difficulty which may well be the
subject of a life-long quest. And looking back on the course
of religious belief in my time, I should say that the great
change has been a change in the idea of God.

It is, as I see it, a change from the idea of a terrestrial God
to that of a God of the Universe. It runs parallel with the
change which transformed the God of Israel into the God of
all the world, and has been resisted by the same instinct as
that which led Peter and James to resist the Pauline appeal to
the Gentiles. In the atmosphere in which I grew up theology
was as purely terrestrial as in the Middle Ages. It was still
chained to the idea that this world was the centre of all exist-
ence and that the whole divine drama was being played out
in it. The enormous extension which modern science has
given to our ideas of existence has dissolved this theology
without replacing it, and what is to replace it is the religious
problem of our time.

It is, I think, the failure of the clergy to understand what
has been going on in the minds of the religiously inclined
laity which is responsible for the decline of organized religion
in these times. For example, the controversy now going on
about the revision of the Prayer Book passes over the heads
of the great majority of intelligent and thinking people.
They wonder that so much zeal and fervour should be spent
on points of ceremonial and doctrine, and so little progress
made in clearing religion of unbelievable and obsolete things.
It amazes them that a revised Prayer Book should still contain
the Athanasian creed and the Commination service, even as
optional forms. One commonly hears economic causes
assigned for the failure or decline in quality of candidates for
ordination. I cannot believe this to be the truth, or any con-
siderable part of it. Men of genuinely religious temperament

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have never recoiled from a life of poverty in pursuit of their
mission, and the young men of these times have certainly as
much of the missionary spirit as those of the previous genera-
tions. But they cannot honestly interpret the creeds and
dogmas in the mediaeval sense which the traditional Churches
require, and they shrink from the modernist casuistry which
would interpret them as allegories and parables. These men
will only be brought back if the ground is cleared of creeds
and dogmas which cannot be believed in a natural sense.

Is the world, then, less religious than it was fifty years ago ?
The question begs the question. The great mass of people
were no more religious — as the orthodox use that word —
fifty years ago than they are now; but undoubtedly the few
are less orthodox now than they were then, and the clergy can
no longer count on them to fill their churches. On the other
hand, I should say that the few are more religiously minded
than they were in my youth. They are more speculative, they
think more about first and last things; they are less content
with the supposed certainties either of science or religion.
For them the one article in the creed which seems to gain a
deeper and fuller meaning as the others fade is, "I believe in
the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life." More and more
their mind dwells on the Master's discourse with the woman
of Samaria. They see the religion of the future as the religion
of the Spirit — not merely something vague called the Life
Force, but the "Holy Spirit," compelling us, in spite of
everything, to think of it as holy.

More people than the Churches know of are, I believe,
building for themselves a religion on this foundation; and to
them the thought of a ruling spirit opens a world of reality
which is far more wonderful than any dreamt of in the ages
of faith. It enables them to think of themselves as sharing
an eternal life which, though beyond human thought and not
to be measured by it, has its intimations in the lives of men,
the beauty of nature, the notes from beyond caught by art,
poetry and music. For these there is peace in the thought
of living conformably with the Spirit and furthering its
purpose, and hope to be drawn from the supreme law which
lets nothing run to waste. The human mind cannot grasp
the idea of incorporeal existence, but it may reasonably

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believe that the human values are in some sense immortal,
for the slaughter of affection and the extinction of individu-
ality after tne long agony of building it up, would be waste
and cruelty which cannot be imputed to tne Lord and Giver
of Life.

This line of thought is not, in my belief, hostile to the
Christian faith. On the contrary, the idea of a spiritual genius
who has some special touch with the world of spirit becomes
more and not less credible as a materialist theology decays;
and the figure of Jesus retains its power as in this special
relation with the unseen. Other things may pass away, but
the need of the world for the mediator between the flesh and
the spirit, between the temporal and the eternal values, will
not pass away.

Ill

The war was, beyond doubt, the heaviest blow struck at
religion in our time. All the Churches were intensely
patriotic, and this was precisely the mischief. The spectacle of
each of them in their respective countries standing with equal
zeal and fervour for its own side, and their collective failure
to find any vantage ground above the battle or to enter any
plea for charity or mercy, made a profoundly cynical impression
in its totality. Each man might believe that his own Church
was right, but all men observed that the gospel of peace was
helpless. No effective religious voice was raised in protest
against the intolerance, the credulity and other excesses of the
fighting spirit which the war brought with it; the Pope, who
endeavoured to mediate, was assailed by all the sects and most
of all by the members of his own flock. I am not reflecting
on the work which was done by priest and padre in the trenches
and hospitals — that was often beyond praise — I am speaking
only of the collective impression left on the general mind by
the failure to find any acknowledged religious ground in the
human conflict. It seemed that religion as such had nothing
to say and that its ministers were mostly engaged in stoking
and sanctifying the secular passions.

Then in a shattering way war seemed to bring back the
old dilemma about the omnipotent God. If He permitted

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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

this, the Almighty could not be the All-loving too. I opened
the columns of the Westminster Gazette to correspondence on
this subject and it flooded in on me. Some of the letters
were marked "Not for publication," and they revealed the
tortures of doubt and misery endured by men and women who
had lost their nearest and dearest and saw the sun blotted
out from heaven in a world which, they passionately protested,
could not be work of a benevolent Creator. Theologians
argued that it was part of the mysterious dispensations of this
Creator that these things should be permitted, and that there
could be no freedom in a world in which man was not free to
destroy himself and his fellow-men; but they brought neither
comfort nor conviction. The retort came that it must be
within the power of the All-powerful to decree conditions
which would enable freedom to be won at a less costly
sacrifice, and the argument went out into the vague with a
suggestion from the theologians that the sacrifice might be
a blessing in disguise. The common mind demands a philo-
sophy beyond its religion, and it has been more deeply stirred
about the foundations of belief in this generation than,
probably, in any preceding period. Theological statements
which force what philosophers call "the antinomies" into a
crude opposition must go, even if their place has to be taken
by a candid avowal that the ultimate nature of things is
unknowable.

Then another thing. Vast numbers have got it firmly
fixed in their minds that religion is the tool of the propertied
classes, and call history to witness the unceasing efforts of the
secular powers to capture the spiritual and use them for their
own purposes. Can it honestly be said that this is a bygone
phase of religion or politics ? Whoever tries to break loose
from tradition and to read the gospels in their simplicity
finds it flashing in on him that they are daring, original,
paradoxical and revolutionary as no other religious literature
in the world. Yet this explosive material is mostly in the
hands of men of quiet and conservative disposition who
consider conformity to the existing order to be a high virtue.
It is small wonder if some of them avert their ga2e from the
Christian ethic and find refuge in preaching what is said to
be the doctrine of the Church. This undoubtedly is the way

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of the quiet life and brings its own reward to the devout.
But the Christian minister who from his village pulpit rebukes
the farmer who stints his labourer, or the landlord who will
not repair his cottage, or in other ways tries to bring the
Sermon on the Mount into the doings of his little community,
will have trouble all the way and be fortunate if he is not brand-
ed and shunned as a disturber of the peace. The Christian
message must be highly generalized if those who deliver
it are to escape trouble. A fashionable preacher may thunder
about the sins of society to a crowded congregation and cause
only a pleasant sensation by his admonishments, but the man
who brings the gospel down from heaven to earth in his own
parish will find his strongest opponents among his "best
supporters."

It seems to be agreed among the orthodox that the Sermon
on the Mount is an impossible ideal for a modern society, and
much ingenuity has been spent in proving that Jesus could
not have meant what He clearly has said. This is what comes
finally of applying to moral teaching a method of interpreta-
tion which quenches the spirit in the letter. The Divine
Teacher could not have meant what He appears to say, there-
fore it is concluded that He must have meant nothing, or
something entirely different from what He appears to have
said. The proof is, as a Bishop once said, that a modern
State could not exist for a week if it adopted the principles
of the Sermon on the Mount. Undoubtedly, but the Teacher
is so evidently thinking not of the modern State, but of the
inner life of men and women, and propounding a doctrine
which is inexhaustibly true and healing for them and even-
tually for the modern State. He delivers His message in
terms that are uncompromising and impossible for the actual
human life, but precisely in that way He is bearing witness
to the spiritual values which must be brought into this life
if it is to have any touch with the eternal. This sense of the
clash between the spiritual and the material is — it more and
more seems to me — at the heart of Christian teaching, and the
softening of it to make a comfortable religion for the State
and its well-to-do citizens the chief cause of its failure to touch
the multitude. They see all that side of Christianity stressed
which counsels meekness and submission, or which transfers

203
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LIFE, JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

the entire moral issue to another world, and few or no voices
raised to rebuke the covetous and overreaching, the violent
and uncharitable in this world.

For this reason I have never, as a journalist, joined in the
rebuke to ecclesiastics for intervening in secular affairs. I
think they had far better intervene and take the risk of being
battered in secular controversy than let the idea go abroad that
religion has nothing to say in controversies which raise great
moral issues. They can always be relied upon to appear
when politics touch the ecclesiastical sphere — Church
schools, Church establishments and so forth — and the con-
trast between their activity on these occasions and their
silence on others has been a great disservice to religion in my
time. As I see it, they were perfectly right in raising their
voices for peace in the General Strike, and their intervention
in no way encroached upon the proper duty of politicians to
see in what way peace could be made. They were on dif-
ferent ground when they entered into the details of the Coal
dispute, but again I think they were right to take the risk.
On this secular ground they must expect to be met with secular
argument and not give themselves the airs of spiritual authori-
ties, but so far as they are plainly endeavouring to find a way
of peace, they are doing a religious work which is within their
sphere. But it is not merely bishops and clergy or the min-
isters of other denominations upon whom the religious cause
rests in these times. I can never read the last word of the
gospel, "Go ye into all the world," without the thought
coming into my mind that in some century of the future there
may arise a new preaching order which will go from nation
to nation and city to city preaching the simple duties of
kindness and charity. The unkindness, the bitterness, the
uncharity which have clouded human relations in recent years,
and the unthinkable suffering which has resulted, are what
most depress +he spirits in thinking of these times. There is
no purely political remedy for them, and if the world is to be
saved, the religious spirit must somehow be enlisted in the
act of "conversion" which is necessary to its peace.
$ . * * ' * ■ '♦' , *

In a volume of Essays published twenty years ago, which
still has a modest circulation, I made a fictitious character

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RELIGION AND LIFE

quote the saying of Aristotle that men, even if mortal, "must
as far as possible live as though they were immortal," and say
that in all literature there were no words which had affected
him so profoundly throughout his life. The Greek words
efiocrov ivSe^erai aBavaTi^eiv are deeper and more ex-
pressive than any translation, and embrace all that a modern
means by the eternal life. They still seem to me to combine
in an extraordinary way both the practical and the speculative
sides of religion. Men may live in the temporal, but in all
their processes they bear witness to the eternal. Their human
origins are far in the past; they cannot plan or invent or act
together for the family or the State without projecting them-
selves into a future which lies beyond their mortal existence;
they cannot read or think without being caught up in a stream
which is flowing out of the past into a future beyond the hori-
zon. However much or little religious dogmas may corre-
spond with the unthinkable realities, the working hypothesis
for a man in this life is that he is immortal, and it seems to
me a rational belief that this hypothesis is in truth the reality.

205

INDEX

Abbey, Edwin, i. 75

Acland, Arthur (Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Acknd, Bart.), friendship with, i. $4;
commends efforts for party unity, i.
103 ; consultations with Grey and
Haldane regarding Foreign Secretary-
ship and War Office appointments
(1905), i. 129

Adly Pasha, and the Milner Mission, ii.

97.99

Aehrenthal, Baron, meeting with Isvolsky :
a provisional Russo-Austrian coup ar-
ranged, i. 218 (note)

Agadir, despatch of "Panther" to, i. 237 ;
Lloyd George's Mansion House speech
on the crisis, i. 238; Franco-German
agreement on, ii. 4

Agra, visit to Great Mosque at, ii. 107

Agricultural Holdings Bill in House of
Lords, i. 142

Air-raids, on Paris, ii. 46 ; in England, ii.
54; tribute to hospital staffs, ii. 54;
anxiety as to safety of Tankerton
hospital during, ii. 54—5

Aisne, battle of, defective arrangements
for conveyance of wounded and sick
after, ii. 39

Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, attends
Jameson Raid inquiry, i. 82 (see also
Edward VII)

Alexander, S., i. 18 (note)

Alexandra, Queen, i. 98

Algeciras Conference, i. 201 ; reception
to German editors after, i. 202

Allenby, Lord, introduces Milner Mission
to Egyptian Ministers, ii. 89 ; proclaims
Egyptian Independence, ii. 99-100

Alma-Tadema, Sir L., i. 75
Ambassadors' Conference (1913), settles
Balkan crisis, i. 167, ii. 4

Ambulance service improvised by Ameri-
can colony in Paris in 19 14, ii. 40

Ambulances, shortage of, in early days of
war, ii. 39

America, enters the war, ii. 73 ; rejection
of League of Nations by, ii. 82

American colony in Paris (1914), work
for wounded by, ii. 38, 40, 44, 45 (note)

American politics, impressions of, ii.
116 et seq.

Andrew, H. P., ii. 45 (note)

Anglo-German relations, efforts to im-
prove, i. 202 et seq., 219, 243 ; opinion of
Kaiser on, i. 209; opinion of Prince
Biilowon, i. 210; aspect of, in early
months of 19 14, ii. 4

Anplo - Japanese Alliance, inveighed
against by Kaiser, i. 215 (note)

Anglo-Russian agreement, conclusion of,
i. 215

Angora, impressions of, ii. 112 et seq.;
Turkish Ministers interviewed at, ii.
113-ij

Anson, Sir William, praises a Limehouse
speech of Lloyd George's, i. 23 1

Archer, William, as reviewer, ii. 149

Aristotle, quoted, ii. 205

Armenian massacres : Gladstone and, i.
68; ii. 176

Arnold, Matthew, dines with Jowett, i.
24 ; an appeal from, i. 41 ; his reminis-
cences of his American tour, i. 42

Asquith, H. H. (Earl of Oxford), urges
Campbell-Bannerman to accept leader-
ship of Liberal party, i. 69 ; and Rose-
bery's speech at Bodmin, i. 12 j;
accepts Morley's resignation as Indian
Secretary, i. 148, 149; qualities of, i.
151; attitude towards journalists, i.
151-3; first meeting with, i. 152;
instance of his accurate memory, i. 154 ;
becomes Premier, i. 155; secret of his
success as Prime Minister, i. 156;
tribute to his leadership, i. 156, 234-5 ;
re-forms Government, i. 213; and
Imperial Press Conference, i. 225 ; and

207

INDEX

the struggle with the Lords, i. 234-5,
236, 238; talk with on Admiralty
crisis, i. 241 ; policy on Irish disorders,
ii. 2; at War Office (1914), ii. 2; and
his opponents, ii. 72 ; presides at
complimentary dinner to author, ii. 76 ;
loses seat in East Fife, ii. 79; and
author's nomination for Milner Mis-
sion, ii. 87

Asquith, Mrs. (Countess of Oxford),
political talks with, i. 151.

Athens, exodus of Greek residents from
Constantinople to, ii. 112

Austen, Jane, author's admiration for
works of, i. 14, 15, ii. 113

Australian wounded at Tankerton hos-
pital, ii. 58

Austria, ultimatum to Serbia, ii. 11

Backhouse, E. D. ("Edmund Dane"),
military correspondent of Westminster
Gazette, ii. 23

Bacon, Robert, ii. 45 (note)

Bagdad Railway question, Grey and, ii. 5

Balfour, A. J. (Earl), Education Bill of,
i. 107; defends repeal of shilling corn
tax, i. 109; personal influence with
Conservatives, i. 114; resignation of
office by, i. 125 ; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 224, 225 ; talk on Bergson
with, i. 240, 241 ; on duty of the Press in
war, ii. 21; commends author's uncon-
ventional action re Dardanelles wound-
ed, ii. 50; at Washington Conference, ii.
120; banquet to, in New York, ii. 121

Balfour, Jabez, flight and extradition of,
i. 59, 60; trial and conviction of, i. 60

Balfour, Lady Frances, serves on Royal
Commission on Divorce, ii. 126

Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, supports Free
Trade campaign, i. 115

Balkan crisis surmounted, ii. 4

Balkan War (1912-13), i. 201

Balliol, author's tutors at, i. 16; reminis-
cences of, i. 17; debating societies at,
i. 18.

Barnett, Canon, friendship with, i. 30, 46;
his conception of theology, ii. 199

Barrie, Sir James, i. 76; at complimentary
dinner to Frederick Greenwood, i. 97

Barron, Dr., ii. 37

Barrymore, Ethel, i. 76

Bath, amenities of, i. 10; legends of past
days, i. 10

Bath College, T. W. Dunn as headmaster,
and his influence, i. 8, 9; curriculum at,
i. 9; closing of, i. 10; memorial to old
boys in Bath Abbey, i. 10

Belgian wounded at Tankerton hospital,
ii. 53

Belgium, question of her neutrality, ii. 1 8 ;
invaded by Germany, ii. 18, ii. 178;
British intervention, ii. 18, 19

Bell, Dr., his services at Tankerton
hospital, ii. 55

Belloc, Hilaire, ii. 24

Benckendorff, Count, as diplomat, i.
175-6; on Russo-German relations,
i. 215

Benet, Mr. and Mrs. Laurence V., ii. 45

(note)
Benson, G. R., i. 18 (note)

Beresford, Lord Charles, and Imperial
Press Conference, i. 226

Beresford, J. D., as reviewer, ii. 149

Bergson's "Evolution Creatrice," author's
review of, i. 240

Bethmann-Hollweg, impressions of, i.
208 ; requests publication of his des-
patch to Count Tschirschky, ii. 1 5

Bieberstein, Marschall von, talk with,
i. 174

Billy, M. de, French diplomatist, i. 184

Birrell, Augustine, i. 72, 225; at Educa-
tion Office, i. 162; difficulties as Irish
Secretary, i. 162; tests Lord Elgin's
sense of humour, i. 213 (note)

Bismarck, rebukes German journalist,
i. 112; his policy of alliances as "secu-
rity" for Germany, ii. 180

Blake, Dr. J. A., ii. 45 (note)

Blanesburgh, Lord, i. 18 (note)

Bloch, Emile, protests against Stead's
edition of his work on modern warfare,
»• 94

Boer problem, attitude of Westminster
Gazette to, i. 91-2

Boer War {see South African War)

Book reviewing, problem of, and a
solution, ii. 148-9

208

INDEX

Borthwick, Oliver, death of, i. 98
Bosnia-Herzegovina, annexation of, i.

215, 216; Russo- Austrian agreement

on, i. 218
Botha, General, meetings with, L 121;

recounts stories of his campaign in

South- West Africa, ii. 82

Boughton, G. H., i. 75

Boulogne, unqualified English ladies
at, early in the War, ii. 49

Boulogne Casino (Base Hospital No. 14),
a visit to, ii. 32

Bourgeois, Leon, president of League of
Nations Union Committee, ii. 81

Bradley, Andrew, and Tennyson's "In
Memoriam," i. 155 (note)

Briand, M., speaks at Washington Con-
ference on French post-war feeling
towards Germany, ii. 11 8-1 9; effect of
the speech on Americans, ii. 120

Brittain, Sir Harry, and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 227

Browning, author's admiration of poetry
of, i. 14; introduction to, i. 24

Brunner, Sir J. F., ii. 76

Bryan, W. J., talks with, i. 177

Bryce, James (Lord), commends efforts
for establishing Liberal unity, i. 103;
informed of Grey's acceptance of
Foreign Secretaryship, i. 130; becomes
Chief Secretary for Ireland, i. 1 3 1

Buckle (editor of The Times), i. 72, ii. 164

Buckmaster, Stanley (Lord), i. 166

Budget (1909), opposition to, i. 230-2;
goes through, with Irish support, i. 234

Bulgarian declaration of independence,
i. 215

Biilow, Prince, interview with, i. 209-11

Burghclere, Lord, Campbell-Bannerman
misinterprets letter from, i. 1 3 1

Burnham, Lord, i. 18 (note); and Im-
perial Press Conference, i. 227

Butler, General, deputizes as High Com-
missioner to South Africa, i. 86

Butler, Sir Harcourt, ii. 102

Blaikie, J. A., as reviewer, ii. 149

Buxton, Sydney (Earl), i. 166; at Imperial
Press Conference, i. 225

Cairnes, Capt., as military correspondent,
i. 95 ; death of, i. 96

Cairo, Milner Mission at, ii. 88-92;
investigation of working of Depart-
ments and preparation of reports in,
ii. 96; in hospital at, ii. 98

Cambon, M., complimentary dinner by
Grey to, i. 191; recollections of, i.
1 7 1-2; confers with Kiderlen-Waechter
on Agadir incident, i. 237; discloses
French attitude towards war, ii. 14

Cambridge, holidays at Caius College,
ii. 196

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., on first
qualification of a Liberal leader, i. 56;
his habit of using nicknames, i. 56, 70,
127, 129, 133; how he described Ha r-
court's moods, i. 67; offered and accepts
leadership of Liberal party, i. 69;
relations with, i. 89; approves attitude
of Westminster Gazette on South
African affairs, i. 89; unfavourable
opinion of Chamberlain, i. 90; problem
during Boer War, i. 101 ; and Rosebery,
i. 106, 126-7; and "step-by-step" policy
on Home Rule, i. 120; denunciation of
his Stirling speech by Rosebery, i. 120;
author's biography of, i. 121, 129-30,
ii. 86; summoned to London (1905), but
delays return, i. 124; forms his
Government, i. 125, 129-31; why he
had failed as effective leader in Com-
mons, i. 128; urged but refuses to go to
the Lords, i. 128, 129; and Morley,
i. 133; as Prime Minister, i. 143; devo-
tion to his wife in her last illness, i. 144;
illness and death of, i. 144, 145, 213;
his trust in Asquith, i. 153; his part in
a movement to acquire control of The
Times, ii. 165; Germany's view of his
disarmament proposals, ii. 180

Campbell-Bannerman, Lady, decides
against her husband's going to the
Lords, i. 129; death of, i. 144

Canada, experiences in, ii. 122-3

Capitalism, challenged by Labour, ii. 187;
its adherence to pre-capitalist theory of
property, ii. 189

Cardew, Rev. F. A., British chaplain in
Paris, ii. 37

Carpenter, Bishop Boyd, Kaiser's opinion
of, i. 208

209

INDEX

Carson, E. (Lord), challenges Executive,
ii. 2; reasons assigned for his
immunity from prosecution, ii. 2

Cassel, author visits Haig at, ii. 74

Casualty clearing stations, necessity of
proved by experience in South Africa,
ii. 41 (note); established in France, ii. 47

Censorship of Press, war-time, i. 96, ii. 72

Chamberlain, Sir Austen, at Imperial
Press Conference, i. 225

Chamberlain, Joseph, congratulates
author on obtaining second in "greats,"
i. 16; impressions of, i. 26; per-
sonality and idiosyncrasies of, i. 26-7;
dines with Morley, i. 72; views on
power of Prime Minister, i. 73; as
Imperialist, i. 78; and Jameson Raid,
i. 8 1 ; question of his entanglement in
scheme for "bloodless revolution" at
Johannesburg, i. 82-4; speech on South
African Report, i. 84; his opinion of
Gould's cartoons, i. 94-5 ; attacks Free
Trade, i. 107; his campaign for Pro-
tection, i. 109; Northcliffe's admiration
for, ii. 172

Charnwood, Lord, i. 18 (note)

Church Army's Convalescent Home for
soldiers, ii. 55-6

Church of England, Morley's term for,
ii. 131; Oxford movement in, ii. 194

Churchill, Winston, joins Liberals, i. 115;
succeeds Lloyd George at Board of
Trade, i. 158; first meeting with, i. 162;
becomes Under-Secretary for Colonies,
i. 162; as rhetorician, i. 163; political
career of, i. 164; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 225 ; appointed to Ad-
miralty, i. 242; walk with, on eve of
Great War, ii. 15; naval estimates of, ii.
69, 70; contentions with Fisher on the
Dardanelles scheme, ii. 70,71; "World
Crisis" by, quoted, ii. 74

"Clag-books," and their inventor, i. 53
Clemenceau, M., interviews with, i. 211-
12, ii. 76-7

Clergy, the, and their intervention in
secular affairs, ii. 204

Clifford, Dr., as politician, ii. 185

"Coe, Captain," i. 31

Collings, Jesse, tours Wiltshire with
Joseph Chamberlain, i. 26

Collins, Churton, his reviews in Westmin-
ster Gazette, ii. 149

Colvin, Sidney, i. 75

Competitions, literary, instituted by
Westminster Gazette, ii. 145-7

Compulsory service, demand for, i. 197;
organized movement for, i. 198;
abandonment of after the War, i. 200

Constantinople, sea voyage to, ii. m-12;
hosts in, ii. 11 j; Robert College, ii.
iij-16

Cook, E. T., offers author post on Pall
Mall Gazette, i. 48 ; as editor and jour-
nalist, i. 53, 54; first editor of West-
minster Gazette, i, 53-4; becomes editor
of Daily News, i. 62; his admiration of
Rhodes and Jameson, i. 80; circulation
of Pall Mall Gazette under editorship
of, ii. 134

Coronation Naval Review (191 1),
Kitchener at, ii. 61

Cortesi, Signor, Rome correspondent of
Westminster Gazette, i. 168

Cosby, Mrs. Spencer, ii. 45 (note)

Courtney, Lord, supports Free Trade,
i. 115, 116; Campbell-Bannerman's
epithet for, i, 116; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 225

Cowdray, Lord, ii. 76; and Tankerton
hospital, i. 99 ; becomes chief proprie-
tor of Westminster Gazette, ii. 139

Cox, Harold, contributes to London
letter of Eastern Morning News, i. 40

Creeds and dogmas, relation of to decline
of religion, ii. 119, 200

Crewe, Lady, organizes matinee for
Tankerton hospital, ii. 54

Crewe, Lord, succeeds Morley as Indian
Secretary, i. 149, 150; as Cabinet
Minister, i. 161; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 225

Criticism, frequent effect of on advertising
revenue, ii. ijo-i

Cromer, Lord, supports Free Trade
campaign, i. 1 16-17; and Imperial
Press Conference, i. 22J

Curragh incident, the, ii. 2

Curzon, G. N. (Earl), Oxford career of,
i. 18, 19; appoints author as member of
Milner Mission, ii. 87; and the Milner
Report, ii. 99; participates in West-
minster Gazette competitions, ii. 147

zio

INDEX

Daily Courant, editorial note in first num-
ber of quoted, ii. 173

Daily Telegraph, rejects specimen articles
submitted by author, i. 30; interview
with the Kaiser, i. 215

Dale, Dr., as politician, ii. 185

Dardanelles, breakdown of medical ser-
vice in, ii. 49

Dardanelles Commission, author's pos-
session of a War Office file revealed to,
ii. 51

Davidson, Strachan, tutor at Balliol, i. 16

Davis, Mr. J. W. (former American Am-
bassador in London), oration at banquet
to Earl Balfour in New York, ii. 121

Davis, Richard Harding, i. 76

De la Mare, Walter, as reviewer, ii. 149

Delane, J. T., and his thoroughness, i. 37

Delcass6, M., i. 185 ; forced resignation of,
in 1905, i. 190

Delhi, Coronation Durbar at, ii. 101 et
seq.; Journalists' Camp at, ii. 103;
Swarajist demonstration at, ii. 105

Democracy, definition of, ii. 189; how
regarded by author, ii. 190; difficulties
of democratic Government, ii. 192

Dicksee, Sir Frank, P.R.A., i. 75

Dinner parties, in the 'nineties, i. 75—6

Diplomacy, alleged "secrets" of, i. 169

Divorce, Royal Commission on, author
as member of, i. 245, ii. 124 et seq.;
question of marriage of "guilty parties,"
il. 127 ; proposed new causes of divorce
discussed, ii. 129-30; Minority Report,
ii. 129-30, 132; Lord Gorell's Majority
Report, ii. 131

Dogger Bank outrage, ii. 176

Dreadnoughts, controversy regarding
number of, i. 228; Lord Fisher's belief
in, as means of ending naval com-
petition, ii. 68

Dreyfus affair, i. 184

Du Bouchet, Dr. Winchester, ii. 45 (note)

Dunn, T. W. (headmaster of Bath
College), i. 8 ; tribute to, i. 8-9

Eastern Morning News, author in tem-
porary charge of, i. 28; appointed
editor of, i. 32; decline of, and reasons
for, i. 33-4; staff of, i. 41; Matthew
Arnold visits office of and prefers
request, i. 41-2

Echo, engagements on, i. 31, 47

Editing a newspaper, ii. 142; in what it
consists, ii. 143

Education Bill, rejected by Lords, i. 142

Edward VII, King, at Marienbad, i. 124;
interest in Imperial Press Conference,
i. 227; death of, i. 236 {see also Albert
Edward, Prince of Wales)

Edwards, Passmore, proprietor of Echo,
i. 31, 32, 47, 48; opposes Home Rule,
i. 32

Egypt, Milner Mission to, ii. 87 et seq.;
Independence granted by proclamation,
ii. 100

Election day (1868), author's recollections
of, i. 4

Elgin, Lord, displacement of, when
Asquith Government was formed, i.
213-14

Eliot, C. N. E., i. 18 (note)

Elliot, Arthur, editor of Edinburgh
Review, i. iij

Elliot, Miss Daisy, matron of Tankerton
hospital, ii. 55

Ellis, Robinson, editor of Catullus, i. 17

Ellis, Tom, friendship with, i. 54; and
Rosebery-Harcourt differences, i. 66

Emmott, Alfred (Lord), i, 166

Encyclopadia Britannica, on demonstration
against Lloyd George as result of
interview in Westminster Gazette, ii. 84

Entente, the, coming of, i. 188

Esher, Viscount, ii. 37 ; requests Campbell-
Bannerman's return from Marienbad
(1905), i. 124; intimacy with King
Edward, i. 124, 187; first meeting with,
i. 186; as permanent member of Com-
mittee of Imperial Defence, i. 186; and
Territorial Army, i. 187, 197; and
Imperial Press Conference, i. 225, 226;
his report on medical shortage in France,

ii. 42
1
Etretat, bathing at, ii. 101

Evening News, ii, 133

211

INDEX

Evening Press in London, former and
present position of compared, ii. 133
e t seq.

Evening Standard, ii. 133

Expeditionary Force, breakdown of
Medical Service of, ii. 36 et seq., 49

Fabians, "peaceful penetration" policy of,
ii. 186

Fashoda incident, resentment in France,

i. 184
Fass, A. H., ii. 37, 45 (note)

Faulkner, A. G., cricket articles in
Westminster Gazette by, ii. 153

Fisher, Lord, relations with, i. 188;
objects to Haldane's reorganization
scheme, i. 241 ; perturbed at Churchill's
appointment to Admiralty, i. 242 ; rela-
tions with Press, ii. 67; first meeting
with, ii. 67; suggests a "picnic at Kiel,"
and King Edward's reply, ii. 67-8;
dares a party to go on a submarine, ii.
68; as economist, ii. 70; Churchill and,
ii. 70; objects to Dardanelles scheme,
ii. 71; last meeting with, ii. 71

FitzGerald, Colonel, military secretary of
Lord Kitchener, ii. 65

Fitzmaurice, Lord, i. 131, i. 161

Forbes, W. H., tutor at Balliol, i. 19

Foreign affairs, trials of journalists in
dealing with, i. 167 et seq., 221-3

Fortnightly Review, J. L. Garvin's article on
Protection in, and author's reply,
i. iio-ii

Fowler, H. H. (Viscount Wolverhamp-
ton), i. 72

Fox, H. F., conducts Westminster Gazette's
competitions in Greek and Latin verse,
ii. 146

France, attitude of Press of towards
Britain, i. 184, 185; friction with,
i. 184-5

Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, and his
consort, murder of, ii. 8

Franckenstein, Baron, visits author and
alleges Serbia's complicity in Serajevo
crime, ii. 9 ; his evidence unsatisfactory,
ii. 10-11

Franco-German agreement following
Agadir crisis, ii. 4

Frederic, Harold, i. 76

Free-lance journalism, difficulties of, i. 46

Free Trade campaign begins (1902), i.
no; appreciations of Westminster
Gazette's attitude to, i. Ill et seq.; help
in from new friends, i. 1 13-17

Free Trade Union, establishment of, i. 1 1 1

Free Trade Unionists, co-operate with
Liberals against Tariff Reform, i. 1 13-17

French, Sir John (Earl of Ypres) at
Imperial Press Conference, i. 225

Fuller, G. P., political activities in Wilt-
shire, i. 26

Furse, Charles, ii. 166

Gallini Pasha, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Gandhi, Mahatma, interview with, ii. no

Gardiner, A. G, first meeting with, i. 202

Garrett, Edmund, assistant-editor of
Pall Mall Gazette, i. 48; appointed
editor of Cape Times, i. 49 ; and Jameson
Raid, i. 80, 85

Garvin, J. L., contributes to Eastern
Morning News, i. 40-1 ; as "Calchas"
supports Tariff Reform, i. no; and the
Imperial Press Conference, i. 227

Gassett, Miss Grace, Chief of Surgical
Dressing Department, Neuilly hospi-
tal, ii. 45 (note)

Gates, Dr. and Mrs., of Robert College,
Constantinople, ii. n 5-1 6; their work
in war-time, ii. 116

Geake, Charles, assistant leader-writer on
Westminster Gazette, i. 63; his reten-
tive memory, i. 63, 112; chief of
Liberal Publication Department, i. 233;
serious illness of, ii. 23

General Election (Jan., 1906), Liberal
triumph in, i. 134 et seq.

General Hospitals, established in France,
ii. 47

George V., King, introduces President
Wilson to guests at State Banquet, ii. 80;
at Delhi, ii. 104

George, Henry, in a temper, i. 21

George, Lloyd, as chairman of a railway
committee, i. 157-8; impressions of,
i. 157, 158; becomes Chancellor of the
Exchequer, i. 158; his dual personality,

212

INDEX

i. 158, 160; as Minister of Munitions,
i. 159; relations with intellectuals, i.
160; friction with McKenna, i. 164,
165; insurance and social reform pro-
gramme, i. 230, ii. 1; Budget of 1909,
i. 230, 234; Limehouse speeches of,
i. 231; Mansion House speech on
Agadir crisis, i. 238 ; National Insurance
Bill of, ii. 1; a minatory telegram to,
during Peace Conference, ii. 83

German Emperor, entertains English
journalists, i. 205 ; conversation with,
i. 206 ; complains of scarcity of English
visitors to Berlin, i. 206; lunches
with Haldane, i. 207-8; his "shining
armour" speech, i. 218; annotates
article by author dealing with Anglo-
German quarrel, i. 243 ; his responsibi-
lity for Austrian ultimatum to Serbia,
ii. 11

German naval policy, suppressed memo-
randum on, i. 173

German Navy Law (1908), effect of, i. 21 j

Germany, how she viewed the Anglo-
French Entente, i. 189-91; counter-
attack on Entente by, i. 190;
visit of English editors to, i. 202 et seq. ;
endeavours to wreck Anglo-Russian
agreement, i. 215; a Kaiser crisis in,
i. 215, 220; disclaims knowledge of
annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, i.
217; and Russian peril, ii. 6-7; why the
English hold her responsible for Great
War, ii. 12; effect of her invasion of
Belgium on English public opinion,
ii. 178

Giuliano, San, Italian Ambassador, i.

177. 217.
Gladstone, Herbert (Viscount), i. 124, 129,

166

Gladstone, W. E., talk with, i. 43;
holograph communications to author
from i. 50; resigns Premiership
(1894), i. 55 ; as Free-lance, after retire-
ment, i. 66, 68; policy regarding
Armenian massacres, i. 68, ii. 176;
fate of his Home Rule Bills, i. 66, 118;
Chamberlain on "crime" of, i. 73;
dictum of, i. 161

Globe, ceases publication, ii. 133

Goldie, W., author's companion in tour
of Upper Egypt, ii. 94, 95

Goldschmidt, Madame (Jenny Lind), i. 5

Gorell, Lord, Chairman of Divorce
Commission, ii. 12 j; his convictions

regarding existing marriage laws, ii.
125; tribute to his work, ii. 125, 131;
his hope of a unanimous Report
defeated, ii. 127; his Majority Report,
ii. 131

Goschen, Viscount, declares himself an
uncompromising Free Trader, i. 114;
visits author, i. 113

Gould, F. C, becomes assistant-editor of
Westminster Gazette, i. 63 ; his cartoons,
i. 93, 112, 118; a knighthood for, i. 136;
election cartoons of (1909), i. 233

Great Britain, her former attitude to-
wards war, ii. 175-6

Great War, crises leading up to, i. 201;
part of Press in, ii. zi et seq.; tribute
to British infantryman, ii. 34-5 ; break-
down of British medical service in, ii.
36 et seq., 49; failure of Nivelle's
offensive (19 17), ii. 73; East and West
controversy, ii. 74-6; question of
responsibility for, ii. 175 et seq.

Green, Thomas Hill, i. 16

Greenwood, Frederick, contributions to
Westminster Gazette on South Africa
by, i. 96, 97; his real title to fame, i. 97;
circulation of Pall Mall Gazette under
editorship of, ii. 134

Greenwood, James, articles on a night
in a casual ward by, ii. 134

Greg, Colonel E., his help for Tankerton
hospital, ii. 56

Grey, Edward (Viscount), recalls a "rag"
at Balliol, i. 17; Oxford career of, i. 18;
and Campbell-Bannerman's declaration
on Home Rule, i. 1 25 ; presses Campbell-
Bannerman to go to the Lords, i. 128;
decides to join the Government, i. 130;
relations with, i. 168-70; his policy
before Great War, i. 169; "Twenty-five
Years," by, i. 198, 201; invited by
Kaiser to visit Berlin, i. 206 ; and Imper-
ial Press Conference, i. 225 ; hints at a
peerage for author, i. 236; thanked by
Germans for handling of Balkan crisis,
ii. 4-5 ; unsuccessful efforts for peace
(July, 1914), ii. 12; on "the lamps going
out all over Europe," ii. 14; copy
of Bethmann-Hollweg's telegram to
Westminster Gazette forwarded to, ii.
1 5 ; apprised by author of inadequate
measures for dealing with wounded,
and takes action, ii. 41-2; on disadvan-
tages of Kitchener's appointment as
Secretary for War, ii. 63

213

INDEX

Gros, Dr. Edmund, ii. 45 (note)

Gulland, John, ii. 76

Guthrie, Anstey, i. 75

Guthrie, Lord, serves on Divorce Com-
mission, ii. 126

Gwynne, H. A., and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 227

Haig, Field-Marshal, visit to at Cassel,

ii. 74
Hailey, Sir Malcolm, as host at Lahore,

ii. no

Haldane, Viscount, author's fortnightly
lunches with, i. 76; attitude towards
Boer problem, i. 92; urges that Camp-
bell-Bannerman should go to the
Lords, i. 128; how regarded by
Campbell-Bannerman, i. 129; joins
Government, i. 130; services at War
Office, i. 131; army reconstruction
scheme of, i. 194, 195; and Imperial
Press Conference, i. 225; presses for
reorganization of Admiralty, i. 241;
his visit to Berlin, i. 243, ii. 5 ; takes
action to remedy medical shortage in
France, ii. 42

Hall, Samuel Carter, ii. 198

Hamilton, Lord George, resignation of
from Balfour's Government, i. 114

Hamilton, General Sir Ian, introduces
author to Lord Roberts, i. 197;
opposes conscription, i. 198

Hamilton, J. A., i. 18 (note)

Hammond, Mr. and Mrs. J. L., i. 61

Hanotaux, M., i. 185

Harcourt, Loulou (Viscount), his post in
Campbell-Bannerman's Administra-
tion, i. 131; and projected agreement
with Germany, ii. 5 ; presses for reform
of medical service, ii. 42; attends
complimentary dinner to author, ii. 76

Harcourt, Sir Wm., relations with his
colleagues, i- 56; his zeal for economy,
i. 56, 57; as Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, i. 56, 57; strained relations with
Rosebery, i. 57, 66 et seq.; intervenes in
party affairs after retirement, i. 68;
his Budget of 1894, i. 74; and Jameson
Raid, i. 83, 84; and Rosebery's Chester-
field speech, i. 106; death of, i. 122

Hardie, Keir, and Independent Labour
party, ii. 186

Harding, President, at Washington Con-
ference; his policy for better relations
with Europe, ii. 117, 118, 119

Hardy, R. E., i. 18 (note)

Harmsworth, Alfred, i. 99, 162 {see also
Northcliffe)

Harnack, Prof., as theologian, Kaiser's
view of, i. 208

Harrington, Ned, and Parnell Divorce,
i. 44

Hassanein Bey, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Hatzfeldt, Prince, meets author at Berlin,
i. 203

Hawkins, A. H. (Anthony Hope), i. 18
(note), 76

Hawksley, B. F., solicitor of South
African Company, i. 80, 83

Hay, John, American Ambassador, i. 177

Hayes, G. B., ii. 45 (note)

Henley, W. E., as imperialist, i. 78;
Northcliffe and, ii. 166

Herrick, Mrs., her work for sick and
wounded, ii. 38, 45 (note)

Herrick, Myron, American Ambassador
to France, ii. 37; heroism and herculean
work of (1914), ii. 38, 45 (note);
warned of risks in remaining in Paris,
ii. 45 ; narrow escape from death in air
raid, ii. 46

Hichens, Robert, i. 76

Hichmet, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Holland, Sydney (Lord Knutsford), i. 97

Holstein, von, introduction to, i. 210-n

Home Rule, fate of Gladstone's Bills,
i. 66, 118; Rosebery's attitude to, i. n 8 ;
"step-by-step" policy : Morley on,
i. 119; Irish demand for, i. 233 {see also
Irish party)

Home Rule Bill, passing of (19 14), ii. z

Hope, Sir Anthony, i. 18 (note), 76

Hop-pickers' Hospital, Marden, Kent,
built by subscribers to Tankerton
hospital, ii. 59

Horner, Sir John and Lady, i. 153

Hospital equipment, shortage of, in early
days of war, ii. 39

214

INDEX

Hospital trains, lack of, at Villeneuve-
Triagc, ii. 39; French opposition to
institution of, ii. 41

Huddleston, Sisley, Paris correspondent to
The Times, i. 168; his interview with an
unnamed "high authority" published,
and a storm in the Commons, ii. 83

Hughes, C. E. (American Secretary of
State), speech at Washington Confer-
ence, ii. 117, 118

Hull, a sanitary campaign in, i. 37; four
years in, i. 39 et seq.; amenities of, i. 41

Hurst, Sir Cecil, and Milner Mission, ii. 96

Hutchinson, Horace, field sports corres-
pondent of Westminster Gazette, ii. 152

Hutchinson, Dr. J. P., ii. 45 (note)

Huxley, T. H., dines with Jowett, i. 24

Hyde Park, in the 'nineties, i. 75

Imperial Conference (1909), i. 224

Imperial Press Conference in London,
author as chairman of Committee, i.
224; subjects discussed at, i. 225-6;
banquet to Dominion guests at White
City, i. 227; Lord Balfour on duty of
Press in war-time, ii. 21

Imperiali, Marchese, as diplomat, i. 177

Imperialism, the new, reflections on,
i. 78 et seq.

Independent Labour Party, their com-
plaint against Liberals, ii. 187

Independent Liberals, good work by,
after the Peace, ii. 84-j; their pro-
tests against "black-and-tan" methods
in Ireland, ii. 85

India, visits to (1911), ii. 101-4; (1926),
ii. 105-7; pleasures of travel in, ii.
107-10; charm of its landscape, ii. 108;
its architecture, ii. 108-9; climate of,
ii. 109-10

Indian Civil Service, author's view of,
ii. 106

Indian journalists, the King-Emperor's
recognition of, ii. 104

Ingram, Mr., and Milner Mission, ii. 92

Ireland, racial and religious feuds in, ii. 2

Irish Councils Bill (1907), i. 120

Irish party, their confidence in Campbell-
Bannerman, i. 120; difficulties with in
1 9 10, i. 233; Budget passed with sup-
port of, i. 234

Irish question, i. 118 et seq., ii. 1-3;
conference on, with Conservative party,
i. 235

Isaacs, Rufus, i. 166 {see also Reading,
Lord and Lady)

Isvolsky, interview with, i. 216; fall of,
i. 218

Italy, disclaims knowledge of Austrian,
coup, i. 217; the Foreign Secretary in
difficulties, i. 217

James, Henry, i. 75 ; a meeting with, and
his views on America, ii. 121

James of Hereford, Lord, and Free Trade
campaign, i. 115

Jameson, Dr., interview with, i. 86-7

Jameson Raid, effect of on Chartered
shares, i. 79; German Emperor's tele-
gram to Kruger on, i. 79, 81; raiders
released by Kruger, i. 81; Committee
of Inquiry on, i. 8 1 et seq. ; question of
Chamberlain's entanglement in, i. 82-3 ;
trial and conviction of raiders, i. 84

Jebb, R. C, i. 24

Jekyll, Sir Herbert and Lady, i. 153

Johannesburg, projected rising in, and
Jameson Raid, i. 80 et seq.

Jones, Kennedy, and minatory telegram
to Lloyd George, ii. 83

Journalism, Jowett's views on, i. 22;
provincial, in the old days, i. 330/ seq. ;
Gladstone's opinion of, i. 43 ; secret of
success in, i. 46; question of honours
awards in, i. 136 et seq.', difficulties in
dealing with foreign affairs, i. 167 et
seq., 221-3; reflections on art and craft
of, ii. 154 et seq.; advice to young
writers, ii. 1 57 ; misunderstanding about
the "we" of, ii. 158; use of "however"
in, ii. 161 ; seven devils of, ii. 162

Jowett, Benjamin, some characteristics
of, i. 22-3

Jusserand, M., on French attitude towards
Germany, ii. 120

215

INDEX

Kaiser (see German Emperor)

Kemal Pasha, ii. 113, 114; danger of
opposing, ii. 115

Keogh, Sir Alfred, and medical service of
Expeditionary Force, ii. 36; works with
Red Cross at Rouen, ii. 41-2; re-ap-
pointed Director-General of R.A.M.S.,
ii. 42; interviewed on question of
Dardanelles wounded, ii. 49-50; com-
ments on author's account of medical
shortage, ii. 52

Khaki Election (1900), i. 100, 105

Kiderlen-Waechter, and Agadir crisis,
i. 237

Kimberley, Earl, i. 66; death of, i. 122

Kipling, A. W., ii. 45 (note)

Kipling, Rudyard, i. 78

Kitchener, Earl, conversation with, on
conscription, i. 199; appoints Sir A.
Keogh Director-General R.A.M.S., ii.
42 ; action against unqualified ladies in
Boulogne, ii. 48; first meeting with,
ii. 60; an inquiry about newspapers,
ii. 61; popular idea as to his secretive-
ness unfounded, ii. 61 ; ambitions as to
Viceroyalty of India, ii. 61 ; in Egypt,
ii. 62 ; becomes Secretary for War, ii. 63 ;
his trust in Asquith, ii. 64; aloofness
from the Press, ii. 65; friction with
politicians, ii. 65; appeals for recruits,
ii. 66

Knollys, Lord, interviewed respecting
attendance of Rosebery at Imperial
Press Conference, i. 227 ; host at dinner
to Morley, ii. 79

Knutsford, Lord, i. 97

Kruger, German Emperor's telegram to,
i. 79, 81; British pressure upon, i. 86;
ultimatum to Britain, i. 91

Kuhlmann, von, enigmatic character of,
i. 175; talks with misconstrued by
Northcliffe, ii. 5; his view of Schie-
mann's warning on Russian peril, ii. 6, 7

Labour party, attitude of Liberals to, ii.

187
Landor, Walter Savage, friendship with

Spender family, i. 10, 11

Lane, John, on effect on Yellow Book of
author's pamphlet, i. 58

Lang, Andrew, i. 75

Lang, Cosmo (Archbishop of York), at
Balliol, i. 18; his work on Divorce
Commission, ii. 130, 131

Lascelles, British Ambassador at Berlin,
i. 203

Lawson, H. L. W. (Lord Burnham),
i. 18 (note)

League of Nations, rejection of by
America, ii. 82

League of Nations Union, author at
Committee of, ii. 81

Legras, M. Charles, Paris correspondent
of Westminster Gazette, i. 168

Le Sage (Sir J.), author's interview with,
i. 30 ,

Liberal League, foundation of, i. 102;
Rosebery as President of, i. 125-6

Liberal party, plight of (1896), i. 65 etseq. ;
attitude of right wing of, to South
African question, i. 80; critical mo-
ments for, i. 101 et seq.\ reuniting of,
i. 107; in power (1906), i. 134 et seq.;
(1910), i. 233 et seq.; and House of
Lords, i. 142-3, 231 et seq.; conference
with Tories on Irish question, i. 235;
social policy of (191 1), ii. 1

Liberal Publication Department, propa-
ganda of, i. 233

Liberalism, decline of, some general
causes of, ii. 183 it seq.

Lichnowsky, Prince; i. 174-5; m A*

crisis, ii. 8, 11, 14
Lindsay, Ronald, British Ambassador at

Constantinople, ii. 115

"Little Englanders," Rosebery's quarrel
with, i. 68

Lloyd, Frank, and Tankerton hospital,

i. 99
Lloyd George (see George, Lloyd)
London Hospital, Press bazaar for, i. 97
London in the 'nineties, i. 74-6

London Letter, Edward Spender as

Father of the, i. 6 (note)
Long, R. E. C, Berlin correspondent of

Westminster Gazette, ii. 17

Lopp, G. E., ii. 45 (note)

Lords, House of, struggle with Commons,
i. 142, 231, 234-5, 236, 238

216

INDEX

Loreburn, Earl, remonstrates on divul-
gence of Cabinet secrets, i. 241

Low, Sir Sidney, accompanies British
editors to Germany, i. 202

"Lusitania," sinking of, ii. 178

Lyttelton, Alfred, and Imperial Press Con-
ference, i. 225

Lytton, Earl and Countess, author enter-
tained by at Calcutta, ii. no

McKenna, Ernest, i. 165; work for
Westminster Gazette's Free Trade pro-
paganda, i. 113; holidays at Etretat
with, i. 157, ii. 10 1

McKenna, Reginald, as Free Trader, i.
in, 113; naval programme of, i.
158 205, 228; at Etretat, i. 157, ii.
1 01; appointed Financial Secretary of
Treasury, i. 162; as administrator, i.
164; secedes from Liberal party, i. 165;
promoted to Admiralty, i. 214; and
Imperial Press Conference, i. 225;
consults author on Admiralty crisis, i.
241; becomes Home Secretary, i. 241,
242

Maclean, Sir Donald, leads "Wee Frees,"
ii. 84-5

Mahmoud, Mohamed, and Milner Mis-
sion, ii. 97

Malet-Lambert, Rev. J., and sanitary
condition of Hull, i. 38

Mallet, C. E., i. 18 (note)

Mallet, Sir Louis, i. 1 8 (note)

Malta, visit to, ii. 88

Marjoribanks, Edward, Liberal Chief
Whip, i. 54

Markham, Arthur, relations with, i. 165;
his sympathy with miners, i. 165;
death of, i. 166

Marlborough House, garden party to
Dominion guests at, i. 227

Mame, Battle of, work of American
Colony in Paris after, ii. 38

Marriage laws, necessity for reform of, ii.
125-6; hardships of existing laws,
ii. 125-7; view of the Churches on, ii.
126, 1 3 1-2 (see also Divorce)

Marxian doctrine, recrudescence of, ii. 187

Mary, Queen, her interest in Tankerton
hospital, ii. 54

Mason, Captain Frank, Chairman of
Ambulance Committee, Neuilly hos-
pital, ii. 45 (note)

Massingham, H. W., attacks author's
attitude on Liberal unity, i. 102; con-
gratulations on Free Trade propaganda
from, i. 112; tribute to literary skill of,
i. 138; expresses satisfaction with Life
of Campbell-Bannerman, ii. 86; main-
tains that war for Armenians would
have been justifiable, ii. 176; joins
Labour party, ii. 188

Mathews, Miss Florence H., ii. 45 (note)

Maurice, General Sir F., publishes his
correspondence with Sir W. Robertson,
ii. 76; debate in Parliament on, ii. 76

Maxim, Sir Hiram, story about, ii. 144-5

Maxwell, General Sir John, and Milner
Mission, ii. 96, 99

Maxwell, Lady, ii. 88

Mazlum Pasha, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Mensdorff, Count, Austro-Hungarian
Ambassador, relations with, i. 176-7,
ii. 11

Meredith, George, seeks acquaintance
with author, i. 76; meetings with, i. 77;
character sketch of John Morley by,
i. 77; author's tribute to his genius,
i. 77; his use of metaphor, i. 78

Metternich, German Ambassador to
London, i. 172; patriotism of, i. 172;
memorandum on German naval policy
by, i. 173, 178-82; recall of, i. 174;
Haldane's dinner to, i. 191; and the
German naval question, i. 219; alarmed
at Agadir coup, i. 238, 239; as diplo-
matist, i. 239, 240

Mignot, Dr. R., ii. 45 (note)

Millet, Pierre, and Briand's speech at
Washington, ii. 119

Mills, Saxon, biographer of E. T. Cook,

i- 53

Milner, Alfred (Viscount), becomes High
Commissioner to South Africa, i. 85;
critical despatch from, i; 88; and
Imperial Press Conference, i. 225;
"damn the consequences" speech of, i.
232; views of on Egyptian affairs, ii. 91

Milner Mission, author appointed member
of, ii. 87; attitude of Egyptian Press
towards, ii. 89; official boycott of, ii.
89; Report of, ii. 90; publication of
Report of, and its fate, ii. 99-100

INDEX

Ministerial journalism, difficulties of,
i. 139-41

Moghul architecture, examples of, ii.
108-9

Monahan, F. W., ii. 4j (note)

Mond, Sir Alfred, and purchase of
Westminster Gazette, ii. 138

Morley, Charles, as peacemaker, i. 71

Morley, John (Viscount), introduction to,
i. 29; advises author's return to pro-
vinces, i. 29 ; on his relations with Har-
court, i. 56, 70; disappointed with his
office in Rosebery Administration, i. 57;
as litterateur, i. 70; ambitious of leader-
ship of Liberal party, i. 70; resigns from
"councils of the party," i. 70; as host,
i. 72 ; views on fitness of journalists for
public affairs, i. 72; and Gladstone
memorial, i. 73; appreciation of
Meredith by, i. 77; presides at dinner
to Frederick Greenwood, i. 97; on
author's efforts for Liberal unity, i. 104;
and Foreign Secretaryship, i. 132-3 ; and
Campbell-Bannerman, i. 133; at India
Office, i. 146; his admiration of Curzon,
i. 148; resigns Indian Secretaryship,
i. 148; as inveterate resigner, i.149;
as handy man of the Government
(1910-14), i. 150; takes charge of
Parliament Bill in House of Lords, i.
150; aggrieved at colleagues' attitude
on Belgian neutrality, ii. 18; refuses
Kitchener Viceroyalty of India, ii. 61;
Clemenceau's message to ii. 77, 78;
and biography of Campbell-Bannerman,
ii. 86; death of, ii. 86; circulation of
Pall Mall Gazette during editorship of,
ii. 134

Morocco question, settlement of, ii. 4

Morris, William, lecture on "Art and
Democracy" at Oxford, i. 20

Mowatt, Sir Francis, and Budget of 1909,
i. 232

Miiller, Admiral, introduced to Sir A.
Wilson, i. 208

Miiller, Iwan, of Daily Telegraph, i. 224,
227

Miiller, Max, introduces author to John
Morley, i. 29

Munro, Mrs. George, ii. 45 (note)

Munro, H. A. J., i. 24

Munro, Hector H. ("Saki"), i. 93

Murray, Alec, activities as Chief Whip,
233; as peacemaker, i. 235-6; ii. 76

Murry, Middleton, as reviewer, ii. 149

Nation, article on disarmament in, how
regarded in Germany, ii. 180

National Insurance Bill, agitation against,
ii. 1

National Liberal Club, public dinner to
author at, ii. 76

National Liberal Federation, author's
presidency of, ii. 86

Naval Estimates, agitation on, ii. 69-70

Netdeship, R. L., tutor at Balliol, i. 16, 19

Neuilly, American hospital at, ii. 38, 44;
expansion of, ii. 45 (note)

New York Evening Post, articles contribu-
ted to, ii. 86

Newman, J. H., Cardinal, supervises per-
formances of Latin plays, i. 13; as
controversial writer, ii. 16 1-2; his
secession to Church of Rome, ii. 194

Newnes, Sir Frank, ii. 76

Newnes, Sir George, founds Westminster
Gazette, i. 51 ; relations with, i. 52, 107;
appoints author as editor, i. 62; iosses
entailed by ownership of the paper, ii.
138, 139

Newspapers, mechanical difficulties of
production during Great War, ii. 23;
question of reports of divorce cases in,
discussed by Royal Commission, ii.
127; how recent legislation affects such
reports, ii. 128

Niagara Falls, author's recollections of,
ii. 123

Nicholson, Field-Marshal Lord, out-
spoken language on impropriety of
divulging official secrets, ii. 51

Nicholson, R. H. B., and sanitary con-
dition of Hull, i. 37-8

Nietzsche, glimpse of, i. 40
Nivelle, General, courtesy of, ii. 29
Nonconformists, and their political activi-
ties, ii. 185

218

INDEX

Northcliffe, Lord, indicts Liberal leaders
for their treatment of Press, i. 137;
attacks Asquith, i. 152; advocates con-
scription, i. 199; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 227; charges author
with unpatriotic intimacy with von
Kuhlmann, ii. 5; changed view on
Haig and Robertson's stand for West-
ern offensive, ii. 74; instigates a mina-
tory telegram to Lloyd George, ii. 83;
professes high regard for Westminster
Gazette, ii. 139-40; denies offering
author editorship of The Times, ii. 164;
friendship with author, ii. 165-6; his
qualities and defects, ii. 166; attitude
to Westminster Gazette, ii. 167; offer of
help, ii. 167-8; controversy regarding
air-raids, ii. 168 ; train journey with and
last talk, ii. 169; campaign against
Irish policy of Coalition Government,
ii. 170; intuition of, ii. 170-1 ; his "anti-
stomach-tax" campaign, ii. 171-2; his
admiration for Chamberlain, ii. 172

O'Connor, T. P., and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 225

O'Dwyer, M., i. 18 (note)

Ontario, visit to, ii. 122; addresses to
schoolboys at, ii. 123

Opportunism, Joseph Chamberlain's
views on, i. 73

Orange, H. W., assistant-editor of
Eastern Morning News, i. 40

Ott, Dr., warns Campbell-Bannerman of
risk of assuming double burden of
Premier and Leader of House of
Commons, i. 128, 144

Oxford, and Asquith, Earl and Countess
of (see Asquith, H. H., and Asquith,
Mrs.)

Oxford memories, author's, i. 15 et seq.

Paravicini, P. J. de, author's tutor at
Balliol, i. 17

Pares, Prof., St. Petersburg correspondent
of Westminster Gazette, i. 168

Paris, experience of war restrictions in,
"• 37> 39 J British Consulate reopened
in, ii. 38; prepares for siege, ii. 45;
first air-raid on, ii. 46; talk with Ameri-
can officers in, ii. 77.

Parliament, scene in, after debate on
South African Report, i. 84

Parliament Act, passing of, i. 245

Parliament Bill in House of Lords, scene
in Lobby after division on, i. ijo

Parnell, C. S., his divorce and its con-
sequences, i. 44

Partington, Oswald, attends complimen-
tary dinner to author, ii. 76

Peace Conference, Lloyd George at, ii.
79; author's impression of, ii. 81

Peel, Sir Robert, Chamberlain on, i. 73

Pember, F. W., i. 18 (note); excellence of
his Greek and Latin versions in West-
minster Gazette, ii. 146

Pentland, Lord, literary executor of
Campbell-Bannerman, ii. 86

Phillips, J. S. R., editor of Yorkshire
Post, i. 202 ; amuses German Emperor,
i. 207

Plural Voting Bill, House of Lords and,
i. 142

Pollen, Arthur, naval correspondent of
Westminster Gazette, ii. 8, 24

Potsdam, English journalists as guests at,
i. 205

Powell, York, i. 30, 31

Prayer Book, revision of, controversy on,
ii. 199

Press, the, importance of in war-time, ii.
21; its aid in recruiting, ii. 24

Paaschendaele offensive, reasons for, ii. 73

Page, Walter, American Ambassador,
i. 177-8

Pall Mall Gazette, and its editors, i. 48 ;
sale of, i. 50; ceases publication, ii. 133 ;
circulation under various editorships,
ii. 134

Rackham, Arthur, i. 58

Railways, Departmental Committee on
question of, i. 157; Lloyd George as
chairman, i. 157; author as member of,
i. 157; Churchill becomes chairman
and winds up Committee, i. 158

Rawlinson, Mary (see Spender, Mrs. J. A.)

219

INDEX

Rawlinson, Mr. W. G. (author's father-in-
law), a wedding present from, i. 49

Reading, Earl and Countess of, a stay at
Delhi with, ii. 1 10

Reason, Colonel Clifford, services at
Tankerton hospital, ii. 55

Reay, Lady, i. 76

Recruiting, the Press and, ii. 24

Redmond, John, and Campbell-Banner-

man, i. 120; interviewed on liquor

taxes, i. 233; and Carson's campaign,

ii. 2
Reid, Whitelaw, as diplomat and host,

i. 177
Religion, reasons for decline of organized,

ii. 199-200; the war and, ii. 201-2

Repington, Col., military correspondent
of Westminster Gazette, i. 96; joins The
Times staff, i. 96; transfers to Morning
Post, ii. 74; approaches author as to
editorship of The Times, ii. 164

Reviewing and its difficulties, ii. 148

Rhodes, Cecil, talk with, i. 80; and South
African Committee, i. 81 et seq.;
Edmund Garrett's faith in, i. 85

Richmond, W. B., i. 3, 7$

Ripon, Lord, commends efforts for estab-
lishing Liberal unity, i. 103

Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. T., resignation
of, i. 114

Roberts, Lord, advocates compulsory
service, i. 197, 198; attends Imperial
Press Conference, i. 225

Robertson, Sir William, appointed Chief
of General Staff, ii. 64; question of his
resignation, ii. 74

Robinson, Crabb, i. 2

Rodd, Lady, ii. 88

Rodd, Sir J. Rennell, and Milner Mission,
ii. 87, 96

Roos-Keppel, Sir George, High Com-
missioner of North-West Provinces,
ii. 101, 102

Root, Elihu, talk with, ii. 117

Rosebery, Lord, becomes Premier, i. 55;
an anxious year of office, i. 57; tribute
to, i. 64; author's relations with, i. 64,
65 ; strained relations with Harcourt,
i. 66 et seq.; his outlook on foreign
affairs, i. 67; as Imperialist, i. 67-8; as
free-lance after retirement, i. 68;

Chesterfield speech of, i. 92, 105-6,
107; walk with, and discussion on
magpies, i. 101 (note); "definite
separation" from C. B., i. 107; difficulty
of understanding policy of, i. 107;
Bodmin speech of, i. 120, 125-6;
attacks Campbell-Bannerman's declara-
tion on Home Rule, i. 120, 125; bis
opinion of the Entente, i. 190; a speech
by, under difficulties, i. 227 ; introduces
author to Kitchener, ii. 60; offer from
Northcliffe to, ii. 171; resents affront
to British flag in the Mekong, ii. 176;
and the Kruger ultimatum, ii. 176

Round Table Conference, author and,

ii. 3
Royal Army Medical Corps, expansion of,

ii. 47

Royal Army Medical Service, Sir A.
Keogh reappointed Director-General
of, ii. 42

Runciman, Sir Walter, i. 166

Rushdi Pasha, and Milner Mission, ii. 99

Ruskin, John, memories of, i. 19, 20, 21;
dines with Jowett, i. 24

Russell, E. R., and Imperial Press Con-
ference, i. 225

Russia, pro-German party in, i. 215;
alarm in Germany as to relations with,
ii. 6-7; alleged war-guilt of, by mobili-
zation, ii. 175

Russo-Austrian deal at expense of other
Powers, projected, i. 218 (and note)

Said, Mohamed, and Milner Mission, ii. 97
Sakkara Desert, expedition to, and an

accident in a tomb, ii. 97
Salisbury, Lord, Gladstone's criticism of,

i. 43 (note); dictum on Protection, i.

108; traditional policy of, i. 183

Samuel, Sir Herbert, i. 166

Sarwat Pasha, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Saunders, William (author's uncle), and
foundation of Western Morning News,
i. 4; offers author secretaryship, i. 26;
elected M.P. for East Hull, i. 28; loses
his seat, i. 32; offers author editorship
of Eastern Morning News, i. 32; final
parting with and death of, i. 45

Schiemann, Prof., warns author of
Russian menace to Germany, ii. 6-7

220

INDEX

Schubert, Baron, interviews author on
Serajevo crime, ii. 10

Scott, Percy, ii. 68

Serajevo crime, the, sympathy of Press
with Austria, ii. 8

Serbia, Austrian ultimatum to, ii. n

Serbian Society, the, and the Serajevo
crime, ii. io-ii

Sermon on the Mount, as ideal for
modern society, ii. 203

Shaw, Bernard, on marriage and divorce,
ii. 128

Siamese crisis with France (1894), i. 183,
184

Simon, Sir John, i. 166

Sinn Fein party, i. 236

Slater, Dr. Gilbert, awarded a Doctorate
of London University, i. 60

Smith, A. L., tutor at Balliol, i. 16

Smith, George, founds Pall Mall Gazette,
ii. 134

Smith, Henry, tutor at Balliol, i. 16

Smith, J. A., i. 18 (note)

Smith, Miss Royde, literary competitions
in Westminster Gazette conducted by,
ii. 146-7

Smyrna, visit to, ii. 112

Somme, battle on the, and sound of the
guns, ii. 26-7

South African Chartered shares, fluctua-
tions in, i. 79

South African settlement, Campbell-
Bannerman's part in, i. 143

South African War, commencement of,
i. 91; party bitterness resulting from,
i. 100 et seq.; necessity of casualty
clearing stations proved in, ii. 41 (note);
Kitchener's suggested plan of cam-
paign for, ii. 61

Spectator, the, supports Free Trade, i. 118

Spence, E. F., his theatrical criticisms for
Westminster Gazette, ii. 150

Spencer, Lord, i. 103; visit to, i. 122;
Campbell-Bannerman's affection for, i.
123; author's impressions of, i. 123

Spender, Edward (author's uncle), founds
Western Morning News, i. 4; as journal-
ist, i. 6 (note) ; death of, i. 6 (note)

Spender, Harold (author's brother), i.
5, 7; contributes London Letter to
Eastern Morning News, i. 40; joins staff
of Daily Chronicle, i. 63; accompanies
Lloyd George to Etretat, i. 157

Spender, Hugh (author's brother), Par-
liamentary correspondent of the West-
minster, i. 63

Spender, J. A., birth of at Bath, i. 3 ; some
childish memories, i. 4; bicycle rides at
and around Bath, i. 6 ; holiday walking
tours, i. 7; at Bath College, i. 8-10;
reflections on classical education, i. 12;
favourite poets and authors, i. 13-15,
ii. 113; undergraduate at Balliol, i. 16;
introduced to Browning, i. 24; driving-
tour with Chamberlain, i. 26-7;
secretary to his uncle, i. 27; in tempo-
rary charge of Eastern Morning News,
i. 28; summarily dismissed, i. 28-9;
interviews Morley and Le Sage, i. 29,
30; at Toynbee Hall, i. 30, 46-8;
writes for the Echo, i. 31; patient at
London Fever Hospital, i. 3 2 ; returns to
Hull as editor of Eastern Morning News,
i. 33; problems of the position, i. 33 et
seq.; visits slum areas of Hull, i. 38;
down with attack of pleurisy and pneu-
monia, i. 39; recuperates in the Enga-
dine, and resumes work, i. 39-40;
attends Home Rule debates in Com-
mons, i. 43; introduced to Mr. Glad-
stone, i. 43; proves value of provincial
journalistic experience, i. 46; as free-
lance journalist, i. 47; re-engagement on
Echo, i. 47; assistant-editor Pall Mall
Gazette, i. 49 ; marriage, i. 49 ; in charge
of Pall Mall, i. 49; first years on
Westminster, i, 52 et seq.; arraigns art
critics and decadent novelists, i. 58;
exposes Jabez Balfour, and considers
the sentence excessive, i. 59-60; loss
of a manuscript dealing with state of
England from time of Arthur Young
to middle of nineteenth century, i.
60-1 ; appointed editor of Westminster,
i. 62; association with John Morley, i.
70 et seq. ; unveils monument to W. T.
Stead, i. 76 (note); reports inquiry into
Jameson Raid, i. 81-2; mistrust of
Cecil Rhodes, i. 82-3, 85 ; meeting with
Milner, i. 86; protest against inter-
vention in South Africa, i. 88; replies
to Edmund Garrett's remonstrance on
attitude of Westminster, i. 88-9; reflec-
tions on South African war and
policy, i. 91 et seq.; efforts to establish
Liberal unity, and criticisms, i. 102 et
seq.; advocates annexation of Boer

221

INDEX

States, i. 104; prophesies danger to
Free Trade, i. 108; replies to Tariff
Reform article by Garvin, i. 111;
receives appreciations of Westminster's
Free Trade propaganda, i. 111-12; the
"Diary of Greville Minor" by, i. 113;
meetings with Free Trade Unionists,
i. 1 1 3-17; biographer of Sir H.
Campbell-Bannerman, i. Ill, 129-30, ii.
86; relations with Boer leaders, i. 121;
visit to Lord Spencer, i. 122-4; views
about honours for journalists i, 136-9;
last memory of Campbell-Bannerman,
i. 145; on the Morley touch, i. 147;
first meeting with Asquith, i. 152;
serves on a committee on question of
railways, and tribute to Lloyd George
as chairman, i. 157, ii. 124; committee
wound up by Churchill, i. 158; upholds
McKenna's naval programme, i. 158,
205, 228-9; methods as editor in
dealing with foreign affairs, i. 167 et
seq.; relations with foreign Ambassa-
dors, i. 1 7 1-8; work for Territorial
movement, i. 187, 197-8; article on
Anglo-German relations in Fortnightly,
inspiration of which is claimed by
German diplomatist, i. 191; on the
"General Staff" doctrine, i. 196-7;
impressions of Lord Roberts, i. 197;
attends reception to German editors, i.
202 ; speaks at banquet to British Press
delegates in Berlin, i. 203-4; witnesses
parade of Prussian Guards, i. 205 ; con-
versations with Kaiser, i. 206, 208;
talks with Bethmann-Hollweg, i. 208;
visits Prince Bulow and meets von
Holstein, i. 209-1 1 ; summary of inter-
view with Clemenceau; i. 212; inter-
view with Isvolsky, i. 216; suggests a
four years' programme of shipbuilding,
i. 219; takes part in Imperial Press
Conference, i. 224; interviews Irish
members on liquor taxes, i. 233-4; and
the threatened creation of peers, i. 236;
a dinner with Metternich, i. 239; talk
with Balfour on Bergson, i. 240; a
Westminster article on Anglo-German
relations and British naval supremacy,
and Kaiser's annotations, i. 243-4;
member of Royal Commission on
Divorce, i. 245, ii. 124; sails for India,
i. 245; and Carson's immunity from
prosecution, ii. 2; activities during
period of Irish disorders, ii. 3 ; warned
by Prof. Schiemann of critical relations
between Germany and Russia, ii. 6-7;
denies German accusation of acting as
intermediary in naval conversations
with Russia, ii. 8; question of British

intervention in Austria's quarrel with
Serbia discussed with Franckenstein and
Schubert, ii. 9-10; busy days on eve of
Great War, ii. 13-14; replies to criti-
cisms on publishing Bethmann-Holl-
weg's despatch on eve of war, ii. 16;
resents Foreign Office criticism in a
diplomatic history of the War, ii. 16-17;
memories of visits to the front, ii. 24-7,
73-4; a censored article on battle on the
Somme, ii. 26; at Verdun (19 16), ii.
28-30; scenes in hospitals, ii. 30, 31-2;
reflections on contrast between French
and English characteristics, ii. 32-4;
self-imposed mission to France re
breakdown of medical service,
ii. 36-42; experiences of ambulance
work in France, ii. 40; reports
on medical reforms necessary in
dealing with wounded, ii. 40-1
(note) ; witnesses first air-raid on Paris,
ii. 46 ; goes to Boulogne with a missive
to head of Red Cross from Kitchener,
ii. 48 ; "purloins" a file of Dardanelles
wounded and takes it to Balfour,
ii. 50; memories of Tankerton hospital
and its patients, ii. 5 3-9 ; in Egypt with
Milner Mission, ii. 62, 88 et seq., iz^ ;
in a submarine at Portsmouth, ii. 68-9;
supports Haig and Robertson in
opposing withdrawal of troops from
Western front, ii. 74; twenty-first
anniversary as editor, ii. 76; talks with
Clemenceau, ii. 76-7; Morley presents
author with seals of Secretary of State
for India, ii. 78 ; introduced to President
Wilson, ii. 80; in Paris during Peace
Conference, ii. 81 et seq.; resigns
editorship of Westminster, ii. 85, 140;
journalistic and literary activities after
retirement, ii. 86; nominated President
of National Liberal Federation, ii.
86; early experiences of Milner
Mission, ii. 88 et seq.; interviews a
number of prominent Egyptian Nation-
alists, ii. 91 ; investigates cause of March
rebellion : trouble at Tantah, ii. 92-4;
accident in the Sakkara Desert, ii. 98;
in hospital at Alexandria, ii. 98 ; special
correspondent for Westminster to Coro-
nation Durbar, ii. 101 et seq.; apprised
of secrets of King's Proclamation to
India, ii. 102; impressions of India
republished in "The Indian Scene," ii.
103, 104; dines with Indian journalists
at Delhi : an Anglo-Indian's remon-
strance, ii. 103-4; intercourse with
Indian politicians and journalists in
1926, ii. 105 et seq.; "The Changing
East" by, ii. 106, 112; pleasures of

222

INDEX

Indian travel, ii. 107-10; an experience
in the Great Mosque at Agra, ii. 107-8 ;
visits Turkey, ii. 111-16; at Angora,
ii. 112; debates Mosul question with
Turkish Ministers, ii. 1 1 3-14; addresses
boys at Robert College, Constantinople,
ii. 116; attends Washington Confer-
ence, ii. 1 1 6-21; discouraging results
of work on Public Committees, Royal
Commissions, etc., ii. 124; work for
Lloyd George's Land Committee, ii.
124; serves on Divorce Commission,
ii. 125; view on marriage of "guilty
parties," ii. 127; offers to withdraw
from Divorce Commission, ii. 127; and
exclusion of Press from divorce pro-
ceedings, ii. 127-9; favours postponing
reports of divorce cases until end of
trial, ii. 129; reflections on the evening
Press in London, ii. 133 et seq. ; tribute
to colleagues on Westminster, ii. 136-7;
disinterestedness of proprietors of
Westminster, ii. 139; on an editor's
work, ii. 142 et seq.; how callers
were dealt with, ii. 144; sinks a
high explosive left at office by Sir
Hiram Maxim, ii. 145; on reviewing
and its difficulties, ii. 148-50; recollec-
tions of controversies on theatrical
criticism, ii. 150-1; in scrapes with
writers, actors and critics, ii. 15 1-2;
on the impulse to write, ii. 154;
writing leading articles against time, ii.
155-7; conditions governing rapid
writing and resultant pitfalls, ii. 155-7;
suggestions as to leader writing, ii.
1 60-1; sounded as to editorship of
The Times, ii. 164; relations with North-
cliffe, ii. 164-72; hints for a study of
Northcliffe's mentality, ii. 170; on
question of Russia's war-guilt, ii. 175;
comments on party views regarding
war, ii. 176-7; reflections on respon-
sibility of the nations for European
struggle, ii. 177-8; considers Britain
justified in taking sides against Ger-
many, ii. 178; lessons of the Great War,
ii. 1 8 1-2; on the decline of Liberalism,
ii. 183 et seq.; views on Socialism,
Labour and Capitalism, ii. 186-8; on
democracy, ii. 190-3; experiences of
religious controversy, ii. 195, 197;
difficulties of religious belief, ii. 198 et
seq. ; on decline of organized religion,
ii. 199 ; on effect of the War on religious
belief, ii. 201 ; on the view that religion
is the tool of the propertied classes,
ii. 202; on Sermon on the Mount as
an ideal for a modern society, ii. 203;
on intervention of ecclesiastics in

secular affairs, ii. 204; on vision of a
new preaching order to inculcate
kindness and charity, ii. 204; on human
immortality as a working hypothesis,
ii. 205

Spender, Mrs. J. A. (nee Rawlinson), at
Toynbee Haft, i. 30; engagement of, i.
44; a friend of R. L. Stevenson, i. 44;
marriage of, i. 49; organizes Press
bazaar for benefit of London Hospital,
i- 97-8; 8ets UP fi*st ball ever held at
Albert Hall for the hospital, i. 98;
founds hospital for open-air treatment
at Tankerton, i. 98-9: declines decora-
tion for her hospital work, i. 137; goes
to France to investigate rumours of
breakdown of medical services after
battle of the Marne, ii. 36-42; visits
War Office and reports condition of
affairs, ii. 42; supplies for hospital
trains from, ii. 47; in charge as Com-
mandant at Tankerton, ii. 53-4; in-
structions for evacuation in case of
enemy invasion, ii. 55; responsibilities
in convalescent camps, ii. 58; intro-
duced to Kitchener, ii. 61; letter from
Lord Fisher praising her Court gown, ii.
67; accompanies Milner Mission, ii.
88-9; cross-examined by party of Egyp-
tians as to her husband's whereabouts,
ii. 95; travels with her husband in
India, ii. 101 et seq.; accompanies her
husband to Turkey, ii. 1 1 1 ; illness at
Constantinople, ii. 115; ladies of On-
tario organize reception to, ii. 123

Spender, J. K. (author's father), as
medical specialist and practitioner, i. 1 ;
as writer and critic, i. 1, 2; his gene-
rosity, i. 1 ; and Anglo-Catholic move-
ment, ii. 194

Spender, Mrs. J. K. (author's mother),
tribute to, 1, 3 ; as novelist, 1, 3, 4

Spender, Col. Wilfrid (author's cousin),
i. 6 (note)

Spring-Rice, Cecil, warnings against
Germany from, i. 215

Star, the, ii. 133

Stead, W. T., author's friendship with, i.
76; periodical lunches with, i. 76, 139;
his parting words, i. 76 (note); and
the Jameson Raid, i. 80; warns author
against becoming a "departmental
hack," i. 139; accompanies English
editors to Germany, i. 202; circulation
of Pa/I Mall duting editorship of, ii. 134;
indulgence towards callers, ii. 144;

223

INDEX

considers "conversion" of Northcliffe
one of author's "missions in life,"
i. 165

Steed, Wickham, assists Northcliffe in
campaign against "black-and-tan"
Irish policy, ii. 170

Stevenson, Robert Louis, invitation to
Miss Rawlinson to visit Samoa, i. 44-5 ;
water-colour drawing by, in author's
possession, i. 45

Strachey, St. Loe, helps Free Trade
campaign, i. 118; and Imperial Press
Conference, i. 227

Straits, the, question of opening, i. 216,
218 (note)

Stumm, von, Under-Secretary at German
Foreign Office, ii. 17

Submarine menace, growth of, ii. 73

Suez Canal shares, British purchase of, i. 97

Suffragettes and their propaganda, ii. 2

Sumner, Lord, i. 18 (note)

Sun, the, ii. 133 (note)

Swarajists' hostile demonstration at Delhi,
ii. 105 ; a talk with their leaders, ii. 106

Swete, Henry (author's cousin and god-
father), holidays at Cambridge with,
ii. 196-7

Sydney College, Bath, author at, i. 8

Tagore, Rabindranath, as host at San-
tinekatan, ii. no

Taj Mahal, an appreciation of, ii. 108-9

Tangier, Kaiser lands at, i. 190

Tankerton hospital, foundation of, i.
98-9; in the military zone, ii. 53;
accepted as a first line hospital, ii. 53;
expansion of, and staff increased, ii. 53;
memories of patients at, ii. 56; remains
open for chronic cases after the war,
ii. 5 8-9 ; closed, ii. 5 9 ; Canadian patients
at, ii. 123

Tariff Reform, advocated by Chamber-
lain, i. 109 et seq.

Tariff Reformers' "alternative Budget,"

i. 232
Taylorian Museum, Oxford, i. 20

Tennant, Mrs. J., and Majority Report of
Divorce Commission, ii. 131

Tennyson, peerage conferred on, i. 24;
writes new section for "In Memoriam,"
i. 155 (note)

Territorial movement, author becomes
member of London County Associa-
tion, i. 187, 197; Lord Roberts advo-
cates compulsory service and con-
siders Haldane's scheme ineffective,
i. 198; Voluntary Service Committee
formed, i. 198 ; denunciations of, i. 199;
Kitchener and, i. 199

Test matches (1921), controversies on,
ii. 153

Theatrical criticism and its difficulties,
ii. 1 50-1

Theologians, Kaiser's conversation on,
i. 208

Theology, difficulty of belief in, ii. 198;
modern science and, ii. 199; in relation
to war, ii. 201-2 {see also under Spender,
J. A.)

Thomas Freeman (Lord Willingdon) i. 166

Thomas, Owen, General, and Milner
Mission, ii. 96

Thomson, Archbishop, attacks housing
conditions in Hull, i. 38

Times, The, advice to Unionists on Budget
of 1909, i. 232; attitude of, towards
denudation of Western front, ii. 74;
conversation with Repington regarding
editorship of, ii. 164; scheme for con-
trol of, as Free Trade organ, fails, ii.
164-5

Tirpitz, Admiral von, vindictive attitude
towards Metternich, i. 172-3; attends
banquet to English editors, i. 203

Tisza, Count, speech following Serajevo
murders, ii. 9, 10

Toynbee, Arnold, tutor at Balliol, i. 16

Toynbee Hall, work at, i. 30, 46

Tractarian movement, ii. 194

Treves, Sir Frederick, supports author's
view of marriage of "guilty parties"
after divorce, ii. 127

Tschirschky, Count, German Ambassador
in Vienna, Bethmann-Hollweg's des-
patch to, ii. 15

Turkey, author's visit to, ii. 111-16;
object of visit, ii. 112

Tweedmouth, Lady, i. 76

224

INDEX

Tweedmouth, Lord, i. 54; and Liberal
leadership (1898), i. 69; displaced at
Admiralty, i. 214; illness of, i. 214;
naval estimates of, ii. 69

Twyeffort, L. W., ii. 45 (note)

Typhus, outbreak of, in Hull, i. 38

Tyrrell, Sir Wm,, private secretary to Sir
E. Grey, i. 171

Unionist Free Traders, loyalty to party
of, i. 114, 117

Unionist party, an act of folly by, i. 231,
236

Vanderbilt, Mrs. W. K., ii. 45 (note)

Verdun, visit to, and experiences during
German attack on, ii. 29-30

Versailles, Treaty of, democracy and, ii.
190-1

Victoria, Queen, Jowett's resemblance to,
i. 23; Gladstone's tribute to, i. 43 (and
note)

Village life in India, ii. 107

Villeneuve-Triage, clearing-station of,
inadequacy of medical arrangements
at, ii. 39; tribute to staff at, ii. 40

Voluntary Service Committee (of Terri-
torial Army), formation of, i. 198

Wales, Princess of (Queen Alexandra),
opens Press bazaar for London Hos-
pital, i. 98

Wallas, Graham, ii. 186

Walrond, Osmond, and Milner Mission,
ii. 91

"War-guilt," reflections on, ii. 173 et seq.

Warner, P. F., contributes articles on
cricket to Westminster, ii. 153

Washington Conference, author as special
correspondent at, ii. 116, 140; impres-
sions of, ii. 116 et seq.; battleship
agreement and "Pact of the Pacific,"
ii. 119

Watson, Alfred, tribute to his work for
Westminster Gazette, during war, ii. 23

Webb, Sir Henry, chairman of directors
of Westminster Gazette, ii. 76

Webb, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney, ii. 186

Wells, H. G., and the word "however,"
ii. 161

Welsh Disestablishment Bill in Parlia-
ment, ii. 1

Wessels, meeting with, i. 121

West, Sir Algernon, i. 55

Western Morning News, foundation of,
i. 4; London Letter of, i. 6 (note)

"Westminster Alice," republication of,
i. 93

Westminster Gazette, foundation of, i. 52;
a novel form of advertising, i. 52;
author appointed editor of, i. 62; atti-
tude on party unity, i. 67, 102 et seq.;
difficult times during Boer troubles,
i. 88, 91 et seq.; its Free Trade propa-
ganda, i. in et seq.; protests against
abuse of "honours" system, i. 137;
foreign correspondents of, i. 168;
labelled as "the organ of Sir Edward
Grey," i. 170; resume of T908 files of,
i. 218 et seq.; sympathy with Austria
on Serajevo tragedy, ii. 8 ; described
as "spare-the-German Press," ii. 22;
directors' generosity on author's ap-
pointment on Milner Mission, ii. 88;
cessation of as an evening paper, ii. 133,
139; circulation of, ii. 135, 138; con-
forms to fashion in "make-up," ii. 137;
advertisement revenue of, ii. 138;
tries plan of joint publication to lessen
costs, ii. 138; increasing cost of pro-
duction, ii. 139; offers prizes for literary
competitions, ii. 145, 146; book re-
viewers of, ii. 149; its theatrical criti-
cisms, ii. 150; articles by cricketers in,
ii. 153; conditions under which
leading articles were written for, ii.
155-7; Northcliffe's attitude to, ii. 167;
correspondence in on war in relation
to theology, ii. 202

Whistler, James, i. 78

Whitney, Mrs. Henry Payne, ii. 45 (note)

Whittingehame, discussion on philosophy
at, i. 240

Wilde, Oscar, i. 78

Williams, Miss, ii. 45 (note)

225

INDEX

Williams, Lord Justice Vaughan, on
Liberator case, i. 60; friendship with,
i. 76

Willingale, Miss Mary, Chief Nurse of
NeutUy hospital, ii. 45 (note)

Willingdon, Lord (Freeman Thomas),
i. 166

Wilson, Admiral Sir Arthur, introduced
to Admiral Miiller, i. 208

Wilson, President, Mansion House lunch
to, ii. 79; the King's comment on a
speech by, ii. 80

Witney, Dr., surgeon at Tankerton, sent
to Egypt, ii. 55

Wolf, Lucien, accompanies English
editors to Germany, i. 202

Wordsworth, author's admiration for
poetry of, i. 13

Wounded, regulations dealing with con-
veyance of, ii. 39, 40; improved
methods obtaining at a later period,
ii. 47

Young Turks, revolution of (1908), i.
215 ; attitude of Press to, i. 220

Younger, R., i. 18 (note)

Zaghlul Pasha, visits London, ii. 99
Ziwar Pasha, and Milner Mission, ii. 97

Printed by The Sun Engraving Co., Ltd., London and Watford. 30.827

oxn our

MAY 211985

Jfc **

STORAGE

DA
566.7
S-nen^er, John A. S7

Life, journalism and v. 2

•DOlitics

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